JCF USE OF FORCE POLICY:

Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington issued new direc­tives to cops on the streets regard­ing the use of lethal force. On the issuance of those direc­tives we argued that there was no need for a new use of lethal force pol­i­cy, because the exist­ing pol­i­cy is clear, unequiv­o­cal and is stan­dard pro­to­col in the west­ern world. Of course Commissioner Ellington who nev­er faced an armed crim­i­nal in his life is out on the ocean with­out a pad­dle on this ever so impor­tant policy.

That stan­dard is sim­ple, a police offi­cer may dis­charge his/​her weapon in defense of his life or that of anoth­er. Nothing that Ellington adds or take away from that uni­ver­sal pro­to­col ‚on Carolyn Gomes’ behalf will change the fact that cops have a right, every time and are jus­ti­fi­able every time that they have to dis­charge their weapons under the cir­cum­stances I laid out above.

Here are the direc­tives from the Commissioner Of Police.

In a release obtained by OG​.NR, Police Commissioner Owen Ellington has issued new guide­lines to JCF mem­bers in this week’s force orders.

This new direc­tive comes fol­low­ing the recent shoot­ing death of 16-yr-old Vanessa Kirkland who was killed in con­tro­ver­sial cir­cum­stances on Norman lane in Kingston ear­li­er this week. The Commissioner says fol­low­ing recent dis­cus­sions a review of Police pro­ce­dures in the use of Police Force is be done in two weeks by a team lead by the Deputy Commissioner of Inspectors who is expect­ed to make rad­i­cal changes.

Protecting Human Rights and Human Dignity: A JCF Priority

Among our strate­gic pri­or­i­ties is to pro­mote respect for and pro­tec­tion of human rights and human dig­ni­ty. Recent revi­sion of our Firearms and Use of Force Policy with accom­pa­ny­ing train­ing and sen­si­ti­za­tion efforts are the ini­tia­tives tak­en in pur­suit of this pri­or­i­ty. In the last five years, we have made con­sid­er­able progress in the train­ing and re-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of our front-line mem­bers in the safe use and care of firearms. We have made changes to our weapons sys­tem, reflect­ing an imper­a­tive to reduce the risk of col­lat­er­al injury when we are forced to engage crim­i­nal ele­ments in built up areas.

This is most evi­dent in the shift away from rou­tine use of M16 Assault Rifles and Carbines in street lev­el polic­ing to the lighter and less lethal MP5 Sub-Machine Guns and Glock Pistols. The re-intro­duc­tion of pep­per spray with the stat­ed inten­tion to equip 6000 front-line per­son­nel with a com­bi­na­tion of less lethal options to the use of dead­ly force, are all part of a process being under­tak­en with the ulti­mate aim of build­ing a response capa­bil­i­ty that can counter vio­lence direct­ed at front-line per­son­nel by civil­ians, while at the same time, reduce or pre­vent injury and death of attack­ers as well as bystanders.

Recent Shootings and Fatalities

In recent weeks, the Jamaica Constabulary Force has faced much crit­i­cism for an abnor­mal increase in civil­ian fatal­i­ties aris­ing from armed con­fronta­tion with crim­i­nal sus­pects in a very short peri­od of time. Tough ques­tions are being raised about the ade­qua­cy of our Use of Force Policy and the extent to which our front­line mem­bers sub­ject their thoughts and actions to said Policy. Those who crit­i­cize and raise ques­tions or con­cerns about the rate of police killings do so legit­i­mate­ly and iden­ti­fy with the grow­ing num­ber of cit­i­zens who have set high­er stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al­ism from their police ser­vice. We should not see our crit­ics, on this mat­ter of use of force, as adver­saries, but rather, val­ued part­ners who may yet help us refine our tech­niques, thus enabling us to bet­ter achieve our strate­gic pri­or­i­ty of pro­tect­ing human rights and human dignity.

We are a Responsive Force

The Jamaica Constabulary Force must respond to the legit­i­mate con­cerns and expec­ta­tions of our cit­i­zens. The rate of police/​criminal con­fronta­tions, with atten­dant injuries and fatal­i­ties is unac­cept­ably high. Though we are see­ing decline in such inci­dence over recent years, we are nowhere near the point where we can be com­fort­able with this record.

Key Policy Considerations

The Minister of National Security has request­ed that a com­pre­hen­sive review of the Jamaica Constabulary Force Operating Procedures be con­duct­ed with a view to mak­ing adjust­ments where appro­pri­ate. Accordingly, at our last Executive Management Board Meeting on Monday, March 19, the senior lead­er­ship of the Force spent almost one hour dis­cussing the most recent inci­dents of mul­ti­ple casu­al­ties aris­ing from police/​criminal confrontations.

Arising from the dis­cus­sions, a team led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge Inspection, has been tasked to con­duct an urgent review of our Use of Force Policy and

Training and make rec­om­men­da­tion for rad­i­cal improve­ment with­in two weeks. Among the changes under con­sid­er­a­tion and which the High Command has asked Senior Officers to con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tions with rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tions and their juniors are:

• Standard of Care to be exer­cised when dead­ly force is to be used. The cur­rent view is that police offi­cers’ first reac­tion when faced with dan­ger is “offi­cer safe­ty”. We are seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing a pol­i­cy posi­tion which demands that police offi­cers exer­cise equal con­cern for “bystander safe­ty”, extend­ed to the attack­er as they do for their own safe­ty. That is to say our offi­cers must take rea­son­able and safe steps to pro­tect the lives of attack­ers and “pos­si­ble bystander” as they do to pro­tect their own lives. I sug­gest “pos­si­ble bystanders” to make it clear that our duty of care extends to per­sons seen and unseen. Others who may be out of view being shield­ed by pen­e­tra­ble bar­ri­ers such as fence, soft walls or pan­els of motor vehi­cles. Officers are called upon to seri­ous­ly con­sid­er the con­se­quences of shoot­ing into crowds, build­ings, through phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers or into motor vehi­cles. Let us all assume that there are inno­cent per­sons in those posi­tions whose lives may be put at grave risk when we shoot and in such sit­u­a­tions “do not shoot”. Our pub­lic’s expect a high stan­dard of care from us because we are sworn to pro­tect life. Our actions should con­vince our pub­lic’s that even in the face of dan­ger; we have no desire to take life.

• Threat to Use of Deadly Force. The exist­ing Force Policy insists that a police offi­cer should not remove a hand­gun from its hol­ster or train a rifle unless he is legal­ly and moral­ly pre­pared to take a life. The Policy posi­tion obvi­ous­ly reflects what must be the ulti­mate con­se­quence of deploy­ing dead­ly force and empha­sizes the seri­ous nature of the act of dis­charg­ing a firearm in any place. We believe such strict rule denies the police offi­cer the tac­ti­cal option of “threat­en­ing the use of dead­ly force” while demand­ing that an attack­er ceas­es an attack or drops a weapon. Consideration is being giv­en to a pol­i­cy to change allow­ing offi­cers to:

1. train a loaded weapon on an armed attack­er and demand that

he drops a weapon and ceas­es an attack under threat of being shot;

1. appeal to bystanders to move out of an arc of fire for their own safety;
2. relate to the attack­er the con­se­quence of con­tin­u­ing an armed attack on any per­son while call­ing wit­ness­es to the officer’s effort at dif­fus­ing a volatile situation;
3. ver­bal­ize an assur­ance to an attack­er that dis­arm­ing is in both the officer’s and attacker’s own safety.

• Firing of Warning Shots. This prac­tice is pro­hib­it­ed in our cur­rent pol­i­cy. We gave much thought to revis­ing this posi­tion along the lines of giv­ing front-line offi­cers the option of dis­charg­ing a warn­ing shot in a safe direc­tion as an esca­la­tion of threat to use dead­ly force, but stop­ping short of direct­ing force on a human tar­get. This, if applied as a tac­ti­cal option, will:
• force­ful­ly bring home to armed sus­pects the grave dan­ger to which they expose them­selves and oth­ers if they con­tin­ue an armed attack or the threat of attack of the police.
• enable an armed sus­pect to assess the infe­ri­or­i­ty of his fire pow­er to that of the police, mak­ing him real­ize that con­tin­ued attack or threats posed by him is futile and poten­tial­ly fatal.

1. cause bystanders to retreat from “hot zone” or take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tion to avoid injury, which may include sig­nalling their loca­tion to the police and mak­ing an appeal for safe extraction.
2. sig­nal attempts by the police to counter a threat of vio­lence with­out use of dead­ly force.
3. Containment and Waiting Out Armed Suspect. This is already a require­ment of the Firearms and Use of Force Policy but obvi­ous­ly not used as often as need­ed. Several inci­dents show that all oppor­tu­ni­ties of con­tain­ment and dif­fus­ing armed stand-offs were not ful­ly exploit­ed. We will insist in the revised Policy that no forced and armed extrac­tion of sus­pects from any premis­es, vehi­cle or bar­ri­cad­ed area should be under­tak­en until the police have exhaust­ed all options to effect an unarmed sur­ren­der and the sus­pects have giv­en all oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so. The only excep­tion is where the sus­pect pos­es immi­nent threat to the life of any per­son and delayed action from the police would wors­en the situation.
4. 

Criminal Rights activist Carolyn Gomes:

1. Tactical Retreat. Our police offi­cers are cul­tured to pay the ulti­mate price rather than retreat from armed crim­i­nal attack. We are work­ing on a set of pro­ce­dures which could accom­mo­date “tac­ti­cal retreat” as an option to pre­serve human life with­out under­min­ing the sense of pride and hon­or of front-line offi­cers. We will begin the con­ver­sa­tion with the idea that a tac­ti­cal retreat does not sig­nal aban­don­ment of the cause.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…
2. END OF GUIDELINES:
3. I ask all of you my read­ers, do update me on which Police depart­ment to your knowl­edge retreats from armed crim­i­nals as a strat­e­gy. This is mind blow­ing sur­ren­der to crim­i­nal ele­ments in Jamaica by those tasked with enforc­ing the coun­try’s laws. Jamaica is now see­ing acts of ter­ror syn­ony­mous to what is hap­pen­ing in sub-Saharan Africa.
4. Just last week scores of heav­i­ly armed men burned sev­er­al hous­es in one area, mur­dered some occu­pants and ordered oth­ers nev­er to return. This is the Jamaica run by Carolyn Gomes of the crim­i­nal Rights group Jamaicans for Justice. This they do not want you to know, don’t buy the lies about Jamaica no problem.