JFJ Could At Least Waited Until The Bodies Of The Slain Officers Cooled…

Amidst world­wide atten­tion being direct­ed at police for what are seri­ous issues of abuse and vio­lence, it is no won­der that those with ulte­ri­or motives would attach them­selves to this moment like a par­a­site to bare skin.
There should be no pro­tec­tion for bad cops who betray their oaths. As a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer myself, I have a record of speak­ing out in defense of law enforce­ment, while at the same time, exco­ri­at­ing dirty, vio­lent, and abu­sive cops.

There is a del­i­cate bal­ance to be struck between ensur­ing that police offi­cers are allowed to do their jobs with the back­ing of the peo­ple, while ensur­ing that police depart­ments and their offi­cers are held to the strictest stan­dards of account­abil­i­ty.
The two are not bina­ry choic­es, but are rather the tem­plate for the rule of law in a tru­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety.
As the spot­light is being shone on wide­spread racism in American polic­ing, the world is awak­en­ing to the con­cept that the so-called, world’s old­est Democracy, is not so demo­c­ra­t­ic as it has sold itself to be.

In Jamaica, the anti-police lob­by that calls itself Jamaicans for Justice,(JFJ) the force behind the poor­ly designed gov­ern­ment agency (INDECOM), which became law and was unleashed on the police in 2010, would not allow this moment to pass with­out adding it’s two cents.
In a Tuesday Gleaner report (JFJ) asked [Are the police spe­cial) as it lob­bies the gov­ern­ment to give pow­ers of arrests & pros­e­cu­tion to INDECOM.
INDECOM’s com­mis­sion­er Terrence Williams was smacked down in the local courts, after he advanced the claim that the agency had pow­ers to inves­ti­gate, arrest & pros­e­cute.
Not sat­is­fied, Williams went to the UK Privy Council, where he was met with the same response.
As a result, he has deter­mined that not only will he not seek anoth­er term in office, but that he would step aside this com­ing July.
Before wag­ing his court bat­tles, Terrence Williams knew that nei­ther he nor his min­ions at INDECOM had the pow­er to arrest and pros­e­cute under the law.
He acknowl­edged that the com­mit­tee of Parliament had promised that- that pow­er would be added to the agency in due course. Nevertheless, Williams went ahead with a lengthy and expen­sive court bat­tle, argu­ing for pow­ers he already knew he did not have. 

The sad­ness in all of this con­tin­ued push by JFJ, is that the bunch of trai­tors in that anti-Jamaica group is again weaponiz­ing the pub­lic against the police right after six mem­bers of the JCF were shot down, two pay­ing the ulti­mate price in ser­vice to their coun­try.
In alleg­ing unsub­stan­ti­at­ed coverup between the Office Of The Director Of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the police, the lob­by argued:” police offi­cers were get­ting spe­cial treat­ment under the law because, unlike civil­ians, there is a dif­fer­ent process that could take up to months before per­son­nel is charged”.
Responding to the unsub­stan­ti­at­ed and scur­rilous claims, the DPP Paula Llewelyn shot back, quote: “Clearly JFJ, are not in pos­ses­sion of accu­rate sta­tis­tics; they have not done any empir­i­cal analy­sis on the sys­tem,” “They have not enquired from us in rela­tion to the sta­tus of any mat­ter. “They are clear­ly total­ly unin­formed .” 
That has been the modus Operandi of this bunch of atten­tion seek­ers since it’s incep­tion by Carolyn Gomez, out of JFK came a pathet­i­cal­ly dys­func­tion­al agency that has caused the lives of thou­sands of Jamaicans.
Carolyn Gomez was dis­graced and chased from the pub­lic stage but her hand­i­work still remains, both in JFJ and INDECOM.
These days JFJ is under the lead­er­ship of some­one by the name of Rodje Malcolm, whose title is exec­u­tive direc­tor.
The bod­ies of the slain offi­cers are not yet cold, but sure­ly that has nev­er been the con­cern of this anti ‑Jamaican agency, and the trai­tors who gen­er­ate hatred from under its umbrella.

I cau­tion both polit­i­cal par­ties not to go down the road of giv­ing INDECOM pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pow­ers. I know of no oth­er agency any­where in the world that has pow­ers to inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute its own cas­es.
It is a dan­ger­ous road that will lead to mega abuse as we have seen demon­strat­ed by Terrence Williams. Williams abused pow­ers he clear­ly and demon­stra­bly knew he did not pos­sess, in order to harass and harangue police offi­cers who were mere­ly doing their jobs.
The law-abid­ing peo­ple of Jamaica will not stand idly by and allow any more of their coun­try­men and women to be slaugh­tered while [for­eign mon­ey] is used to per­se­cute their police offi­cers.
No one wants dirty cops to con­tin­ue to oper­ate with impuni­ty. If INDECOM believes in the strength of its cas­es, let it inves­ti­gate and present them to the DPP.
If this admin­is­tra­tion wants all cas­es of crim­i­nal­i­ty pros­e­cut­ed with more alacrity, it needs to spend more mon­ey build­ing more cour­t­hous­es and expand­ing the office of DPP, & staffing them appro­pri­ate­ly.
We have already seen what INDECOM does with unchecked pow­ers.
The Jamaica Labor Party cre­at­ed INDECOM with the full acqui­es­cence of the People’s National Party.
They bet­ter not do any more dam­age result­ing in the loss of thou­sands more Jamaican lives.



Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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