JAMAICAN POLICE UNDER FIRE.

In the age of tech­nol­o­gy, Youtube is a gold mine where police excess­es, as well as cit­i­zens mis­be­hav­ior is evi­dent. My col­league was shot in Olympic Gardens as an old woman grabbed him so that her grand son could shoot him. Legitimate though con­cerns of ques­tion­able shoot­ings are, the ques­tion of (sup­posed cit­i­zens) inject­ing them­selves into the scene when­ev­er police arrive are real. They cre­ate shields for their crim­i­nal men, warn­ing them with loud nois­es, and yes putting them­selves and their chil­dren in front of police guns as a means of pro­tect­ing the men who oper­ate in these com­mu­ni­ties, even when the shoot­ing starts. There are those who sit around gath­er­ing num­bers and sta­tis­tic about crim­i­nals whom are killed, with a motive of indict­ing the nar­ra­tive or expla­na­tions of police. The Police has no such luxury,they have respon­si­bil­i­ties, that of pro­tect­ing life and prop­er­ty. Sad though instances of acci­den­tal shoot­ings are Jamaica, will have to stop the pre­tence , it is a coun­try at war and in war there are casu­al­ties, and yes col­lat­er­al dam­age is a part of the equa­tion. Their sto­ries nev­er get told, Cops whom are shot and injured and killed, or who end up with life alter­ing injuries are forced onto the side­lines to live in pover­ty and squalor who tells their sto­ry? Who grieve for them and their fam­i­lies? As blood con­tin­ue to run in Jamaica polit­i­cal lead­ers are clue­less as to how to stop it, our coun­try needs lead­er­ship, and solu­tions. The crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem must change , leg­is­la­tors must enact laws that looks out for the coun­try , not for par­ty sup­port­ers, laws that puts crim­i­nals in prison and lets them stay there. There must be truth in sen­tenc­ing. There must be con­se­quence for hin­der­ing gov­ern­men­tal admin­is­tra­tion, real penal­ty. There must be com­plete and unequiv­o­cal removal of pol­i­tics from the oper­a­tions of police. There must be a com­plete and com­pre­hen­sive re-ori­en­ta­tion of the pub­lic to respect the rule of law and those who enforce them. There must be social inter­ven­tion and jobs cre­at­ed that will dis­in­cen­tivise peo­ple from engag­ing in crim­i­nal behav­ior. I am will­ing to sub­mit to Government , irre­spec­tive of who forms that gov­ern­ment , a blue print on how to pro­ceed to a bet­ter Jamaica, one that is not a panacea , but one that will lay the foun­da­tion toward a more man­age­able, liv­able country.

Gleaner pho­to: Taken March 5^th 2012

Today March 23^rd Jamaicans are going back to the polls to elect those they want to rep­re­sent them at the local Government lev­el. While they do so ‚the Prime Minister still walks around in orange cloth­ing, com­plete­ly obliv­i­ous that the General elec­tions are over and now it’s time to gov­ern. As crime esca­late var­i­ous groups have come out against the amount of peo­ple who have been killed by police bul­lets since the start of the year. This is a legit­i­mate con­cern for any­one who is rea­son­able and fair. I can­not imag­ine los­ing a child , moth­er or any mem­ber of my fam­i­ly ‚or even a friend to bul­lets fired by police officers.

Why is this though?

We hold our police offi­cers to a dif­fer­ent stan­dard they are the ones who are sup­posed to pro­tect us , as such when we become vic­tims of police abuse or error it is par­tic­u­lar­ly hard­er to under­stand or process. As such it is total­ly under­stand­able that peo­ple are up in arms when police bul­lets kill their loved ones whom the police are unable to say are threat­en­ing their lives or the lives of oth­ers. As such I hope the police will learn from protests planned by civic groups, and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly see this as oppo­si­tion to them , but as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for each indi­vid­ual offi­cer to take as much care as pos­si­ble in pre­serv­ing the life of the inno­cent as is placed in offi­cer safety.

DPP TRIUMPHS OVER RM PUSEY:

Director of pub­lic Prosecutions Paula Llewelyn has pre­vailed against Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey in the Judicial Review Court.