Jamaica Will Have To Decide If It Wants To Side With Criminals Over The Rule Of Law !

This old build­ing sit­u­at­ed at 103 Old Hope Rd. Kingston still hous­es the Offices of the Commissioner of police and the 911 call cen­ter that man­ages all emer­gency calls for the country.

Recently we spoke about the despi­ca­ble posi­tion tak­en by Earl Witter Jamaica’s pub­lic Defender regard­ing police officers.Witter shares the view as does Carolyn Gomes head of (JFJ) that police offi­cers do not get shot pro­por­tion­al­ly with the amount of crim­i­nals they shoot.

Many crit­i­cize me for stand­ing with police offi­cers, and as such I want to be real clear where I stand. As a lit­tle boy grow­ing up I recall police offi­cers killing a young Rastafarian man sim­ply because he ran. He was asleep on a counter in his father’s shop where oth­er men were play­ing cards, the police just hap­pened to make their bi-annu­al vis­it to the dis­trict that night, every­one shout­ed police, abrupt­ly awak­ened from a deep sleep he ran from his house and was shot dead. Nothing ever came of his killing!!!! 

The Jamaican his­tor­i­cal land­scape is replete with sim­i­lar sto­ries of instances of abuse by those who took an oath to pro­tect and serve. If we told a thou­sand sto­ries sim­i­lar to this one it would not be overem­pha­siz­ing that this is a prob­lem, and so those whom are tasked with inves­ti­gat­ing , and lob­by­ing for the use of less lethal force must be sup­port­ed where practicable.

With that said if we do not sup­port the rule of law where does it leave us? As a young nation it will not be easy to get to first world sta­tus by pre­tence, nei­ther will we get there with­out adher­ing to the rule of law. As we hold our police feet to the fire of account­abil­i­ty , we must stead­fast­ly demand adher­ence to the rule of law from all cit­i­zens. It is dan­ger­ous to believe we can have a sta­ble coun­try if we tear down the rule of law and those who enforce them . If we believe we can gain safe­ty by sid­ing with crim­i­nals we are woe­ful­ly mis­guid­ed, a scor­pi­on is a scor­pi­on and it will sting.

I served in the JCF and walked away years ago. I will for­ev­er be proud of the ser­vice I gave to my coun­try in that capac­i­ty, if any­thing I feel indebt­ed to my coun­try for hav­ing allowed me to serve. I have met many won­der­ful peo­ple who were exem­plary human beings, some not so much. Many have paid the ulti­mate price, many still serve. One thing is cer­tain I nev­er saw a rich per­son­’s child in the JCF, many feel their kids are too good to serve as police offi­cers. Because of that I per­son­al­ly refused to serve them ‚so I left. Until the men­tal­i­ty of the Jamaican peo­ple change to reflect the real­i­ties of the 21^st cen­tu­ry, Police offi­cers will con­tin­ue to feel under siege and they will lash out. Policing is a covenant between offi­cers and the peo­ple, much like gov­er­nance, each par­ty has to hold up their end of the bar­gain. Earl Witter:Gomes:

Public Defender Earl Witter is sup­port­ing a direc­tive from Police Commissioner Owen Ellington for cops to exer­cise restraint and avoid using unnec­es­sary lethal force in con­fronta­tions with criminals.
But Witter says crim­i­nals should also refrain from attack­ing police per­son­nel, so the cops are not placed in a posi­tion to use lethal force.
According to Witter this could help stem the unend­ing flow of alle­ga­tions of police excess and abuse.
Witter says this would also reduce the com­plaints to the pub­lic defend­er, the Independent Commission of Investigations and oth­er organ­i­sa­tions as well as end the cost­ly and unnec­es­sary drain upon the nation’s mea­gre resources.
Witter made the appeal in a media release in which he con­demned the attack on a police­man in Bathsheba, St. Elizabeth on Tuesday.
Corporal Anthony Watson had report­ed­ly gone to arrest a want­ed man for ille­gal wound­ing, when he was chopped on the arm by the machete wield­ing man.
The pub­lic defend­er says the inci­dent high­lights the per­ils faced dai­ly by police per­son­nel in the exe­cu­tion of their duty.(Jamaicagleaner story)

I HAVE CONSISTENTLY ARGUED THAT ALLEGATIONS OF EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS BY JAMAICAN POLICE OFFICERS CONTRARY TO PERCEPTION, IS NOT LARGELY THE FAULT OF THE POLICE DESPITE GRAND PRONOUNCEMENTS FROM AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND THEIR SURROGATES JAMAICANS FOR JUSTICE.

For years I have argued that the prob­lem of police killings are not total­ly the fault of the police. Crawling out of every wood­work are sup­posed wit­ness­es to these acts, I am not in a posi­tion these days to indict nor con­firm if these cas­es are true or not. What I do know is nei­ther are the detrac­tors of the police.

Local groups like Jamaicans for jus­tice which pro­fess­es to be legit­i­mate human rights groups, have com­pro­mised their legit­i­ma­cy based on their fix­a­tion on alle­ga­tions of police abuse. Stake hold­ers are now tak­ing a deep­er look at their oper­a­tions and are com­ing away with the con­clu­sion I came to years ago. Simply put JFJ is a group that looks out for the rights of crim­i­nals. There are many who cor­rect­ly argue that crim­i­nals have rights too. I total­ly agree that they do . I sim­ply refuse to pay atten­tion to their rights over the rights of their victims.

Make no mis­take, police offi­cers do kill peo­ple ille­git­i­mate­ly. Even though many would have you believe that police killings are con­fined to Jamaican cops, the facts do not bear out those asser­tions. Police Departments all over the world have to deal with offi­cers killing civil­ians under ques­tion­able circumstances.

This does not excuse the police from what crit­ics refer to as heavy-hand­ed tac­tics by police depart­ments the world over. The United States of America with its thou­sands of police depart­ments, is cer­tain­ly not immune to harsh crit­i­cism of heavy-hand­ed tac­tics by police offi­cers in areas where there are large pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty and racial diver­si­ty. What is an absolute fact is that groups like Amnesty International and oth­er human rights groups, do not influ­ence how inves­ti­ga­tions are done, and they cer­tain­ly do not get to influ­ence pros­e­cu­tion of police offi­cers when they take action in the line of duty, regard­less of pub­lic outcry. 

There are no rush to arrest, there are no rush to impugn the integri­ty or motive of offi­cers because any group says so, while there are yet inves­ti­ga­tions going on. Amnesty International which has tremen­dous influ­ence and lever­age in small devel­op­ing coun­tries like Jamaica, are large­ly silent , and are nowhere to be found when blacks and Latinos com­plain about police killings in the United States Canada and their base coun­try Britain.

From the sadom­iz­ing of Haitian immi­grant Abner Louima in a New York police sta­tion to 41 shots fired at unarmed African immi­grant Amadou Diallo snuff­ing out his life , to the scores and scores of oth­er ques­tion­able killings by police in New York city alone they are silent,impotent and nowhere to be found.

Yet these same peo­ple have gone to Jamaica and oth­er coun­tries in which they seek rel­e­vance and dis­tort­ed the truth to sup­port the angle they want to advance. No antag­o­nist group for­eign or local, has sought to get the per­spec­tive of the prin­ci­pal play­ers in the whole affair, the Jamaica con­stab­u­lary force. And I do not mean the gazetted ranks ‚who are gen­er­al­ly sec­ond-rate civ­il ser­vants , removed from the streets , heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by pol­i­tics and the desire for their own sur­vival to be con­sid­ered objec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the police force.

Each coun­try has its own unique prob­lems , as such each nation’s prob­lems must be addressed in a unique man­ner. Jamaica’s crim­i­nals are extreme­ly savvy, they under­stand the val­ue of per­cep­tion, they under­stand the val­ue of good press and they play to those under­stand­ings. People in depressed neigh­bor­hoods are pres­sured to go out and demon­strate against police, they are forced through fear or cohe­sion to attest to see­ing things that lat­er demon­stra­ble turn out to be lies.

Garrison com­mu­ni­ties have pro­fes­sion­al mourn­ers who on que, delve into mourn­ing for the cam­eras, but revert to social­iz­ing as soon as cam­eras are turned off or removed, these are fac­tu­al hap­pen­ings with­in Jamaica’s inner cities, yet these very peo­ple become wit­ness­es for groups like Amnesty International and their sur­ro­gates. Their tes­ti­monies have formed the frame-work for exten­sive and expan­sive doc­u­ments on which Jamaica and it’s secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus is judged.

Not to be out­done for­eign tele­vi­sion net­works have joined the band­wag­on. Television net­works like al Jazeera and ITN have found it nec­es­sary to crit­i­cize police in Jamaica using the same sources oth­ers use. I ref­er­ence Al Jazeera because no one in their right mind take what they have to say seri­ous­ly . When one con­sid­ers what hap­pens in Arab nations as it relates to civ­il rights par­tic­u­lar­ly as it relates to women. It is astound­ing that Al-Jazeera would find time to crit­i­cize oth­ers. These are peo­ple who most­ly oper­ate in the 12^th cen­tu­ry but have the gall to crit­i­cize our coun­try’s secu­ri­ty forces for sen­sa­tion­al and rat­ings pur­pos­es. They dare not ques­tion their own despot­ic regimes regard­ing their atro­cious human rights record. As such let us fall back and with­out deny­ing that we have a prob­lem, not over­re­act throw­ing out the baby with the prover­bial bath-water.

Those who under­stand the utmost impor­tance of the rule of law, also under­stand that they will not be able to con­vince every one of the need to be sup­port­ive of police and the rule of law. It is impor­tant that those who risk being called snitch­es, inform­ers, and what­ev­er oth­er names are out there, do so with the knowl­edge that some peo­ple will have to be dragged along, oth­ers nudged, and oth­ers coaxed along. After all, we all have dif­fer­ing opin­ions, and appro­pri­ate­ly so.

If our peo­ple are to be lift­ed out of igno­rance and despair . If they are to be freed from the shack­les of gen­er­a­tional pol­i­tics which con­demns them to vot­ing the same way ‚cycle after cycle for the same peo­ple, and then their chil­dren. If their lives are to be changed so they too have a shot at get­ting an edu­ca­tion the only real way out of pover­ty, then we have to low­er crime. Jamaicans if not for coun­try, must for them­selves, rec­og­nize that invest­ment that fuels growth shuns crime. Investors must feel rel­a­tive­ly safe, if they are not total­ly safe they must feel that polit­i­cal lead­er­ship is doing what it takes to reverse crime and root out cor­rup­tion. Jamaicans will have to rec­og­nize the gov­ern­ment will not be their sav­ior, there real­ly can nev­er be enough gov­ern­ment jobs to go around. Secondly gov­ern­ment jobs are fuelled by monies com­ing in from the pri­vate sec­tor. The absense of a vibrant pri­vate sec­tor because of crime, those gov­ern­ment jobs dis­s­a­pear real­ly fast. Simply put it is impos­si­ble to pay gov­ern­ment work­ers with­out a sus­tain­able stream of cash com­ing in.

The Jamaican peo­ple can­not expect to pre­tend to want secu­ri­ty if they are unpre­pared to share the respon­si­bil­i­ty of look­ing out for them­selves. The non­sen­si­cal notion of no snitch­ing, no inform­ing, made pop­u­lar by even more igno­rant dance hall artists must be shunned . The only ben­e­fi­cia­ries are the crim­i­nals who exert con­trol of their lives, through fear, intim­i­da­tion, fuelled by the peo­ple’s own silent acquiescence.

I lost three col­leagues whose mem­o­ries will for­ev­er remain with me.

Constable R Seivright:Motorized Patrol.

Detective con­sta­ble Cowan: Western Kingston.

Sergeant Leroy Steele:Eastern Kingston:

These were three of the best men, jovial ‚loved their job, the best our coun­try had to offer . Why do I men­tion these three? These were three of the offi­cers that were clos­est to me, we had attend­ed the Academy togeth­er , gone through the ups and downs of spend­ing a full year between Port Royal and Twickenham Park togeth­er. Our group was the last to have been at the for­mer Port Royal facil­i­ty, but was forced to move as the deci­sion was made to move police train­ing to the for­mer Jamaica school of Agriculture.

As recruits it was a tumul­tuous, but fun peri­od for us, we were involved in the lit­er­al move­ment of the school. because of the pro­tract­ed demands of the mov­ing process, we spent a full year in the train­ing facil­i­ty, an excep­tion not the rule. To this day we still take great pride in the fact that we were the last batch of recruits at Port Royal and the first batch to be trained at the Jamaica Police Academy. 

Constable Seivright was a young man always smil­ing, as soon as you came face to face with Seivright his face lit up in an ear to ear smile, he believed fun­da­men­tal­ly in his chris­t­ian faith, he was one of the only recruits to have tak­en his Bible with him to train­ing school. From the onset many of us thought that Seivright was too quite, too accom­mo­dat­ing to all to be effec­tive as a police offi­cer in the crim­i­nal jun­gle which is our coun­try. In the 80’s lit­tle did we know that our coun­try would be get­ting worse than what we saw then. Unfortunately we were right Seivright was far too good. One night as he walked up to a cab they pulled over on the Mandela Highway and leaned over to say hel­lo a pas­sen­ger opened up with a ster­ling sub-machine gun killing him on the spot. Constable Seivright nev­er had the priv­i­lege of being issued with a bul­let proof vest.

Steele and Cowan gave their lives much the same way . They died believ­ing that they could rea­son with peo­ple. They bought the lie that peo­ple will respect them enough not to attack them because they were cops. Both paid the ulti­mate price because they bought into the lies that Jamaican peo­ple will respect any­thing but hard-nosed policing.

Community polic­ing is the pref­ered form of polic­ing, I embrace it ful­ly, how­ev­er it is naïve’ and disin­ge­nous to sug­gest or infer that com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing can achieve any mea­sur­able result in Jamaica’s urban com­mu­ni­ties. First the ter­ror­ists hid­ing there must be removed then com­mu­ni­ty offi­cers are insert­ed to inter­act with the peo­ple. But it must be clear, those who har­bor crim­i­nals will be pros­e­cut­ed to the fullest extent of the law.