JCF/​INDECOM/​AND JFJ.

There is ample evi­dence in the pub­lic’s domain that tells both sides of the sto­ry which now bedev­ils Jamaica.I refer to alle­ga­tions of police per­ceived excess. Many do not use the word per­ceive because it does not fit the sto­ry they want to tell. Others who want change will like to get both sides out, so that the change we seek will be one all can live with. Anyone who have fish as pets, know that the water with­in the aquar­i­um has to be changed from time to time, how­ev­er one would be mind­ful nev­er to total­ly remove all of the orig­i­nal water putting his fish in an alien envi­ron­ment. This blog is not about fish despite my love of fish. It is about the con­ver­sa­tion I would like to have with you about some­thing that needs to be changed as we seek des­per­ate­ly to keep it because with­out it we are doomed.

Jamaica’s police force has a pub­lic rela­tions prob­lem, this is noth­ing new . For decades the force through inept man­age­ment has allowed itself to be car­i­ca­tured into a woe­ful­ly inept shoot-first ask ques­tions lat­er bunch of half-wits. The pow­ers which cre­at­ed and main­tained the Agency knew exact­ly how to con­trol the force as an enti­ty through divide and rule. As I have stat­ed before rich peo­ple from upper St. Andrew do not allow their chil­dren to join the JCF . For the most part chil­dren of inner city com­mu­ni­ties are also dis­al­lowed large­ly because of their zip code. This leaves the bulk of the force’s enlist­ment to chil­dren of work­ing poor peo­ple from rur­al parishes.

To the best of my knowl­edge these are not peo­ple who are exposed to killings and I’m darn sure are not trained to wan­ton­ly kill peo­ple at the Police acad­e­my. Which brings us to the facts: Jamaicans liv­ing in rur­al areas of the Island up to recent times , before the influx of crim­i­nals run­ning from Kingston, were peace-lov­ing peo­ple . These were peo­ple who cel­e­brat­ed some­one becom­ing a bus dri­ver from their District. So when a mem­ber of their com­mu­ni­ty become a nurse, teacher , or yes a police offi­cer they are very proud.

So what caus­es police offi­cers born and raised by rur­al chris­t­ian folks of mod­est means to become what some would have you believe to be cal­lous mean killing machines? I ran across this arti­cle in the Jamaica Observer I would like to link you to.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com The Article I thought revealed an inter­est­ing truth , a truth I have toiled to bring to the fore in these blogs. That truth is that police kill peo­ple wrong­ful­ly , when that hap­pen they should fess up , and the fam­i­ly of the deceased per­son must be treat­ed with the utmost care and empa­thy, where pos­si­ble max­i­mum com­pen­sa­tion must be made to the fam­i­ly with a view to try to ease the pain. This must be done tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the lim­it­ed resources the coun­try has at its dis­pos­al , but tak­ing into account that no amount of mon­ey may ade­quate­ly com­pen­sate for the life of a loved one.

With that said a greater empha­sis must be placed on the con­di­tions under which our police offi­cers work, the dan­gers they face and the lev­el of sup­port they get in car­ry­ing out their duties. I have writ­ten at length in pre­vi­ous blogs as to the rea­son offi­cers are forced to use force, and in many cas­es dead­ly force. I left the police force from as far back as 1991. Back then we faced M‑16 assault rifles, shot guns, hand guns and on the rare occa­sion oth­er auto­mat­ic weaponry.

Despite the dan­gers we faced then , it pales in com­par­i­son to the pro­lif­er­a­tion and veloc­i­ty of weapon­ry that the coun­try is now awash in. Despite slight improve­ments made in pro­tec­tive gear avail­able to them, police offi­cers face vast­ly ampli­fied and more dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions because of the sheer num­ber of guns on the streets. The veloc­i­ty of weapons avail­able to mur­der­ers is ter­ri­fy­ing, and the crim­i­nals who own them have no com­punc­tion about using them on whomev­er they chose, to include police officers.

As I allud­ed to pre­vi­ous­ly, the pow­ers which put the force togeth­er did not intend to have a force that would one day be pop­u­lat­ed with intel­li­gent peo­ple who could talk back or demand prop­er work­ing con­di­tions. They nev­er fore­saw a force which would see itself on par with oth­er Jamaicans irre­spec­tive of their sta­tion. After all the police were night watch­men appoint­ed to serve Port Royal, Kingston, Saint Catherine, and Saint Andrew. After the Morant Bay rebel­lion of 1865 the need for an orga­nized police force became more urgent and 984 peo­ple were com­mis­sioned into a police force under an Inspector General appoint­ed by the British governor.

Many of Jamaica’s so-called upper class still can­not visu­al­ize mem­bers of the police force as their equals, and as such they fight any and every effort of the police to orga­nize or lob­by for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions , or worse inves­ti­gate them when they are accused of impropriety.

One such group is the Editorial board of the Daily Gleaner:

THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE JAMAICA DAILY GLEANER HAS TAKEN A STRIKINGLY COWARDLY STANCE AGAINST JAMAICA’S POLICE OFFICERS , DESPITE KNOWING THE INFORMATION THEY PRINT ARE WOEFULLY DISHONEST.

Two weeks in suc­ces­sion their edi­to­r­i­al page has car­ried bold head­lines in sup­port of INDECOM ‘s Terrence Williams with­out address­ing the heart of the dis­con­tent of the police groups. The Editorial board chose instead to make claims against the police not even Williams him­self has made, at least pub­licly. They have char­ac­ter­ized the grouse of the police regard­ing Williams’ atten­dance at the press con­fer­ence as quote” ludi­crous”. As I did the first time they wrote their head­line in sup­port of Williams ‚I again called them on their disin­gen­u­ous biased and lying stance in sup­port of Williams. See arti­cle here.jamaica​glean​er​.com The Editorial board of the Gleaner obvi­ous­ly have no greater con­tri­bu­tion to make to nation build­ing than lies innu­en­dos, and dis­in­for­ma­tion, and as such it has dou­bled down on the garbage it pub­lished days before . The idea it seem ‚at least in their view is ‚if they keep repeat­ing a lie it will some­how become truth.

Everyone now have an opin­ion from University pro­fes­sors to med­ical doc­tors to news­pa­per edi­tors , every­one is enti­tled to their opin­ion, maybe it’s good that the con­ver­sa­tion has picked up in earnest. Maybe Jamaicans will see that their sur­vival is tied to the rule of law and irre­spec­tive of who enforces the laws , the title is the same POLICE. Those with­in the soci­ety who have a prob­lem adher­ing to the rule of law, whether they are Editors , Politicians lawyers or whomev­er , know this, the police is going nowhere. Get used to it , obey the laws, that’s it. Former Illinois gov­er­nor Rod Blagojevich this week sur­ren­dered to fed­er­al author­i­ties, he com­menced serv­ing a 14 year term in fed­er­al prison.He was con­vict­ed of cor­rup­tion stem­ming from his attempts to sell the sen­ate seat once held by now President Barack Obama. Rod Blagojevich was a gov­er­nor , and a lawyer, he joined a long list of once pow­er­ful men who thought they were above the law . I would sug­gest the high and mighty in Jamaica take a long hard look at them­selves in the mir­ror and exam­ine what hap­pened to Christopher (Dudus) Coke, a man vast­ly more pow­er­ful than they ever will be . The way things used to be soon will be no more.

Many argue that the police vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly for Portia and her par­ty, hence their request for her to inter­vene into the impasse between INDECOM and them­selves. I am unsure how the vil­lage lawyers know how peo­ple vot­ed. But with that said I hope for their sakes the police are not await­ing a response from either Bunting or Miller that will have any val­ue to them as a group. This gov­ern­ment has no clue and are sim­ply in it for what they can rip for them­selves. A bet­ter day is com­ing to Jamaica, and it means adher­ence to the rule of law, get used to it.