Jamaican Criminals Getting More Sophisticated, Report:

Some mem­bers of the hier­ar­chy of the Jamaica Constabulary force has inti­mat­ed that they are wor­ried about some recent trends. This relates to the num­ber of Ballistic Vests (bul­let proof vests) binoc­u­lars and oth­er para­pher­na­lia they recov­ered over a peri­od of sev­er­al months.

The National Intelligence Bureau revealed that police were shot at on 331 occa­sions by gun­men between January 1 and June 1 this year — an aver­age of 66 attacks per month.http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​S​e​i​z​u​r​e​-​o​f​-​m​o​r​e​-​b​u​l​l​e​t​p​r​o​o​f​-​v​e​s​t​s​-​w​o​r​r​i​e​s​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​_​1​4​5​1​8​867

Five police per­son­nel were report­ed­ly killed and close to 40 shot and injured dur­ing these dead­ly attacks, the police said. In a series of raids across the island over sev­er­al months, police have recov­ered over 20 bul­let­proof vests from mem­bers of the crim­i­nal underworld.

Public Defender Earl Witter:

At the rate of 66 encoun­ters per month it trans­lates to over two attempts (2) per day, these are indeed fright­en­ing sta­tis­tics in a coun­try as small as Jamaica. They are par­tic­u­lar­ly galling when they are para­dox­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered with state­ments from Jamaicans for jus­tice head Carolyn Gomes , and pub­lic defend­er Earl Witter’s state­ments sug­gest­ing that cas­es of crim­i­nals killed by cops are not jus­ti­fied because not enough cops are get­ting killed.

Jamaicans For Justice head Carolyn Gomes:

For the record and for the ben­e­fit of my read­ers whom are not Jamaicans, The Public Defender in Jamaica is paid from tax­pay­ers funds, the office is an arm of the Jamaican Government, and answer­able to the Portia Simpson Miller Administration.

But even as the police high com­mand engage in their woe-is-me hand-wring­ing, I sug­gest they suck it up and put their big-boy pants on. In free soci­eties we can­not be in the busi­ness of stop­ping busi­ness from sell­ing what they chose to as long as the prod­uct is legal.

If peo­ple are deter­mined to kill they will use rocks to do so. Even as the gun debate rages in America, Democratic President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are hav­ing a dif­fi­cult climb up the moun­tain of the sec­ond Amendment to the Constitution which guar­an­tees Americans the right to bear arms.

The United States of America will not law­ful­ly be able to take peo­ple’s guns, so con­gress will have to find oth­er ways to keep guns out of the hands of crim­i­nals. The only prob­lem with that is, a squeaky-clean per­son may pur­chase a gun then com­mits an ille­gal act. Now he/​she is a crim­i­nal, what do you do about that?

The fact is we will nev­er be able to get rid of crime, peo­ple com­mit crimes, what will have to be done is to focus on the per­pe­tra­tors of crime and less on the method­ol­o­gy. A killer may use a piece of cord to kill if he is so inclined.

Jamaican cops will have to find ways to com­bat the scourge of crim­i­nal­i­ty in the face of an intran­si­gent and com­plic­it government.

Even as I sup­port the police’s call for stiffer penal­ties and new leg­is­la­tion for pos­ses­sion of cer­tain items, the com­mis­sion­er of Police Owen Ellington could indi­cate that he at least under­stand the seri­ous­ness of this issue and walk back mak­ing pub­lic the Police week­ly Force Orders to the Public.

As I have said repeat­ed­ly in these posts, the pub­lic has no expec­ta­tion of right of access to this doc­u­ment, which is an inter­nal depart­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tion medi­um. This would be a good first step in the right direc­tion, as I have said time and again crim­i­nals have no right to know where police offi­cers are sta­tioned , where they will be moved to , sta­tion strength, or any oth­er crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion which affects the life of officers.

The com­mis­sion­er of Police Owen Ellington must forth­with cease and desist from putting the lives of the men and women under his com­mand at risk to suit and cur­ry favor with Jamaica’s élite and ene­mies of the state, some of whom are locat­ed at the Fagan Avenue offices of Jamaicans for Justice.

The police can­not do any­thing about the elect­ed Government of Portia Simpson Miller, it can­not make her com­pe­tent, it can­not make the gov­ern­ment more focused on erad­i­cat­ing crime, no more than it could make Bruce Golding see the fol­ly of his ways. What the police can do is be more effec­tive, more assertive, more intel­li­gent, more focused. Jamaica is far too small for the hand wring­ing and the com­plain­ing, Police must be police and dic­tate to crim­i­nals that they will not be allowed to have their way, even if the crim­i­nal lives at Vale Royal.