JCF SENIOR OFFICERS MUST LEAD BY EXAMPLE:

I spent 10 years in the Jamaica Constabulary Force(JCf ), I loved what I did, Many argue that the police force was just a job for peo­ple who did­n’t qual­i­fy for any oth­er job, or who could­n’t find any­thing else to do. I can­not speak to why any­one else joined, but I know I qual­i­fied for Mico Teachers College , but was dis­suad­ed by my step-dad, who encour­aged me to become a police officer.

I know there are not many choic­es for jobs in Jamaica, so even if peo­ple joined because they could­n’t find oth­er jobs , so what? When the pros and cons are weighed it requires a lot of sac­ri­fice from every per­son who serves, irre­spec­tive of length of ser­vice. Low pay, hor­ren­dous work­ing con­di­tions, not enough leg­isla­tive sup­port, not enough polit­i­cal sup­port, not enough mate­r­i­al sup­port, the risks involved. On and on, the cons out­weigh the pros.

When I joined I hoped to make a dif­fer­ence from with­in, after 9 years I real­ized that I could­n’t, after leav­ing in 1991 I asked myself ” am I able to effect change from with­out”? The jury will be out on that long after I’m gone, but while I’m alive I have pledged to myself that I will try my best to see how I may help in chang­ing the land­scape in my lim­it­ed capac­i­ty. Rosa Parks changed a Nation sim­ply by sit­ting down.

One way I feel that change can come about, is exam­in­ing how we con­duct busi­ness from the inside, and doing a men­tal audit with a view to doing bet­ter with what we have.

Years ago while I was assigned to the Constant Spring CIB Superintendent Brooks was trans­ferred to take over the Division. One morn­ing I was on my way to my car which was parked at the back of the sta­tion, when I heard him yelling “cib, cib where is the crime report”? I real­ized he was talk­ing to me, despite the fact that my name was not “cib”. What real­ly pissed me off was that I had just com­plet­ed a tour of duty which com­menced 8.45 am the pre­vi­ous day, with a break at 1:pm to 6:pm, fol­lowed by an all nighter, prepar­ing a volu­mi­nous hand-writ­ten report of all the crimes in Saint Thomas, Saint Catherine, and St, Andrew North which made up Police Area 5. Did I men­tion that I was required to pre­pare 5 copies ?

In addi­tion I had done exact­ly what was required of me, by hav­ing some­one place the report on his desk, and was on my way home to show­er and go to court. I did not answer, I pro­ceed­ed to my car and drove away. He did­n’t both­er to look for the report, he did­n’t feel he need­ed to address me as “offi­cer”, or “cor­po­ral”, he saw me as a whole branch of the force. Despite this mis-step Brooks did not change his ways, he dou­bled down on stu­pid­i­ty by car­ry­ing a grudge against me from that day forward.

Sometime lat­er, as part of an Investigation into a stolen Motor-bike, I went to a home in the depressed com­mu­ni­ty of Cassava Piece , to speak to two broth­ers who were know to us as car­rear crim­i­nals. With me was con­sta­ble Francis and detec­tive cor­po­ral Wilford Gayle who lat­er went on to become a Senior Superintendent. Gayle was one of the offi­cers with me the night I was shot on Blackwood Terrace.

In addi­tion to the fact that these two broth­ers were crim­i­nals, the moth­er was also a drug-deal­er and facil­i­ta­tor of that crim­i­nal enter­prise oper­at­ing from her home. I spoke to the moth­er, indi­cat­ing why I was there, she told me her sons were not home, I asked her to relay to her sons that I would like to see them in order to exclude them as sus­pects in a my inves­ti­ga­tion. She was pret­ty civ­il dur­ing the whole con­ver­sa­tion, so we left. I went on to oth­er mat­ters, and con­clud­ed my tour for that day.

The next morn­ing on my arrival at the office I was told by detec­tive Seargant Jerry Wallace who was Sub-Officer in charge of Crime that Superintendent Brooks want­ed to see me. I found it odd, if Brooks want­ed to find some­thing out he could have got­ten that infor­ma­tion from Detective Inspector Noel Asphall the Divisional Detective Inspector(DDI), or Seargant Wallace the (SOIC) sub-offi­cer in charge of crime, what did he want with me? I had no idea so I picked up my note-book expect­ing that he prob­a­bly need­ed brief­ing on a indi­vid­ual case from the hors­es mouth. I asked Wallace to accom­pa­ny me, I nev­er did any­thing in the force with­out a witness.

Brook’s was on the phone when we entered his office, judg­ing from the con­ver­sa­tion he was on a per­son­al call, (yes that ear­ly in the work day). He con­tin­ued his con­ver­sa­tion chat­ting away mer­ri­ly as if Seargant Wallace and I were trans­par­ent. He did not offer us a seat, he did­n’t ask us to wait awhile, noth­ing, he just ignored us . Personally I nev­er allow myself to be dis­re­spect­ed in that way, and this was not going to be any dif­fer­ent, so I turned to walk away, upon which he hasti­ly hung up the phone.

Then he lit into me.

“Weh di blood claat yu gu dung a M.. yaad guy fire up shat fah, a weh di rass-claat du onuh , onuh blod claat nowa­days police”? I was stunned , what was he talk­ing about? Who did I fire shots at, nei­ther of the men was at the house when we went there, so what was he talk­ing about?

He con­tin­ued to berate me, I stood there and allowed him to con­tin­ue the tirade, when it appeared he was fin­ished, froth­ing at the mouth, I calm­ly asked him, “are you done? You are a damn dis­grace to the uni­form, I respect the rank you hold but you as a per­son is a dis­mal disgrace.

I turned to leave then turned back, pulled my weapon, eject­ed the round in the cham­ber, placed the round back into the mag­a­zine, placed the extra mag­a­zine and the weapon on his desk and told him the Force has a Ballistic Branch and walked out with Wallace in tow.

Back in the CIB Office Seargant Wallace placed his hands on his head and declared ‘jesus gad, 21 years inna di police force, an mi neva si one act­ing cor­po­ral dress dung wan super­in­ten­dent suh.

Gayle chimed in “if a did mi mi woul­da tell him bout him blod claat”.

Jerry Wallace retort­ed “shut up yu blood claat yu fraid a yu fuck­ing shadow”.

I did not know how prophet­ic those words would be until that night on Blackwood Terrace.

Later that morn­ing Detective Inspector Asphall called me to his office and told me Brooks told him what hap­pened ear­li­er. Inspector Asphall told me Brooks want­ed to know about who I was, Inspector Asphall told me laugh­ing­ly “Becks I told him “if you want to know who this man is look at the red ink in the morn­ing report”, mis­ter Asphall hand­ed me my weapon and the two magazines.

Back then red ink on the crime report indi­cat­ed crimes which were cleared up.

In fair­ness to Superintendent Brooks he also asked Inspector Asphall to apol­o­gize to me for his behav­ior. I would have much pre­ferred a per­son­al apol­o­gy, even as I under­stood how dif­fi­cult it must have been for him to acknowl­edge this error.

For the dura­tion of my stint there, Superintendent Brooks tried to mend fences, par­tic­u­lar­ly when cer­tain well placed per­sons called and asked him to have me stop by to see them when I’m on enquir­ers at night.

That woman in Cassava-Piece under­stood the val­ue of launch­ing a pre-pre­emp­tive attack on me in order to have me removed from the case. She knew that her sons were going down and down they went. I recov­ered the motor-cycle in Drewsland and all involved were giv­en their just due in court, includ­ing M..‘s sons.

My col­leagues who were sta­tioned there at the time knows exact­ly what fam­i­ly I am refer­ring to. I write of these encoun­ters to encour­age senior offi­cers to set the exam­ple that they want younger offi­cers to fol­low. If you hope to change the JCF , you must be the change you desire.