Lets Look At Kevin Blake’s Appointment

The ele­va­tion of Kevin Blake to be the next Commissioner of Police seems like an excel­lent move for the casu­al observ­er. Blake was not appoint­ed to head the Department with zero polic­ing bona fides like his pre­de­ces­sors, Antony Anderson, Hardley Lewin, and Trevor McMillian, who were appoint­ed sim­ply because they were soldiers.
No oth­er rea­sons were giv­en for why the three were appoint­ed to the job, so we are left with the com­mon denom­i­na­tor between them: they were all soldiers.
On the face of it, Kevin Blake seems to tick all the box­es — a guy from hum­ble begin­nings who made good through edu­ca­tion. For that alone, this writer applauds the new commissioner.
According to one fawn­ing local pub­li­ca­tion, Blake worked with National Commercial Bank and Decision Support System, a soft­ware devel­op­ment company. 
Then Blake’s sto­ry fell apart for me.…..\

Zero cred­i­bil­i­ty in actu­al polic­ing. Zero engage­ment with Jamaica’s grit­ty inner-city com­mu­ni­ties. Zero under­stand­ing of what hon­est police offi­cers are forced to deal with dai­ly. On that basis, Kevin Blake should have spent his time offer­ing the tech­ni­cal ser­vices he pro­vides to the force, not as Commissioner of Police.
We should not keep mak­ing the mis­take of appoint­ing peo­ple to roles they have no prepa­ra­tion for.
Worse yet, the fact that peo­ple like Mark Shields and Hardly Lewin sup­port Kevin Blake should dis­cred­it this appointment.
Shields, a secu­ri­ty con­sul­tant, said that in an era where tech­nol­o­gy plays an increas­ing­ly vital role in law enforce­ment, Blake’s insights will be invalu­able in enhanc­ing the force’s capa­bil­i­ties in com­bat­ing crime and dis­or­der. Addressing the high rates of mur­ders and firearm offens­es in Jamaica requires strong lead­er­ship and deci­sive action. First of all, who cares what Mark Shields thinks? 
Secondly, a force may have all of the tech­no­log­i­cal know-how, but it is all for naught if its offi­cers do not have the train­ing, knowl­edge, and exper­tise to deal with the crimes the nation faces.
I have no idea why any­one would care what those fail­ures think any­way; they had their chances and looked at where the coun­try is today. Mark Shields was giv­en a plum posi­tion he could not have got­ten in his own country.
Didn’t bring shit to the table but took all he could from Jamaica, includ­ing the wife he married.
Great Mark Shields, the stu­pid knuck­le­heads were mes­mer­ized by your white skin, so you made out like a ban­dit; now go away and sit some­where. Not all of us are behold­en to Bucky Massa.
Both Trevor McMillian and Hardly Lewin had their chance, and the only thing they proved was that friend­ship appoint­ments to posi­tions of respon­si­bil­i­ty are not in the pub­lic’s interest.

Kevin Blake joined the JCF on a spe­cial-entry pro­gram as an assis­tant super­in­ten­dent and rose to assis­tant com­mis­sion­er of police in 2013. Former head of the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch, National Intelligence Bureau, Area 3 Police. Promoted to DCP in June 2020. Blake entered the force in 2002.
Blake’s exper­tise, what­ev­er that is, has been well reward­ed from the very start. The rank of assis­tant super­in­ten­dent leapfrogs five ranks: con­sta­ble, act­ing cor­po­ral, cor­po­ral, sergeant, and inspector. 
Those ranks give a real police offi­cer the nec­es­sary bona fides to be an effec­tive com­mis­sion­er of police, crit­i­cal knowl­edge based on expe­ri­ence, and the abil­i­ty to under­stand and empathize with the peo­ple under his command.
The fact that a per­son has a Ph.D. or may spend twen­ty-plus years in the depart­ment is com­mend­able. Still, it does not qual­i­fy them to lead and com­mand offi­cers in the bruis­ing busi­ness of polic­ing Jamaica’s law­less streets.
Kevin Blake has been with the JCF for twen­ty-two years. In that time, as one of the force’s lead­ers, vio­lent crime has con­tin­ued to increase, and the train­ing our offi­cers receive is woe­ful­ly inad­e­quate, as evi­denced by their encoun­ters with law­less ele­ments on the nation’s streets.
If he did not see these inad­e­qua­cies and make rec­om­men­da­tions to Antony Anderson, a man whose tenure has been dogged by increased crim­i­nal­i­ty, how would Blake be a change agent?