Lets Examine Police Killings !

Citizens demon­strate against police killings in Jamaica:

Awhile back I wrote an Article which was fea­tured in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner, in The arti­cle I attempt­ed to dis­cuss the issue of extra-judi­cial killings. One of Jamaica’s lead­ing criminal/​constitutional lawyer Bert Samuels respond­ed that he would like to see police con­fess to killing inno­cent Jamaicans. I had known Bert for years as a cop sta­tioned at Constant Spring, he is a son of the soil, a man who has done well for him­self hav­ing come from the local com­mu­ni­ty of Glen Drive Kingston 8, just across from Cassava-Piece. Mister Samuels has the unique dis­tinc­tion of hav­ing come from the hood, while hav­ing pulled him­self up to the heights of pow­er through edu­ca­tion. I could empathize with his lit­tle out­burst, hav­ing under­stood his background.

There has been a lot of debate on the issue of extra-judi­cial killings by police offi­cers not just in Jamaica but across the world. Incidents of ques­tion­able police killings are most­ly con­fined to urban or depressed com­mu­ni­ties. I can­not give you a psy­cho­log­i­cal expla­na­tion for it, in coun­tries like the United States and Britain race is seen as a deter­mi­nant. In oth­er places like Jamaica the argu­ments are more con­vo­lut­ed, less rational.

In the US Police line up in antic­i­pa­tion of protest action:

The gen­er­al argu­ment which dom­i­nat­ed the dis­cus­sion in Jamaica is (“because dem poor”) because the vic­tims are poor. This line of argu­ment has lit­tle legit­i­ma­cy when we look at where police offi­cers come from. Jamaica’s Police Force is almost 100% from the poor­er class of peo­ple. So one would have to buy the argu­ment that police are against the poor, the very class from which they come. Thus far we have seen no data which would sup­port that theory.

Rastafarian’s have long argued that police take action against them because they are .….…. well Rastafarian. Criminals argue that police sin­gle them out because they are poor, nev­er because they are.….. well you guessed it, crim­i­nals. It fol­lows that the argu­ment that police treat peo­ple in so-called upscale neigh­bor­hoods bet­ter, is absolute­ly true. There is how­ev­er a rea­son for it, at least in the Jamaican sense, if your life is less threat­ened you are less like­ly to be aggressive.

Whether we agree on this or not is imma­te­r­i­al, police offi­cers get killed less in sub­ur­bia, that’s a fact. One does not have to be a police offi­cer in Jamaica to under­stand this, peo­ple sim­ply do not go into cer­tain areas, and if they have to, they are scared as hell with the hair stand­ing on the back of their necks. It’s no dif­fer­ent if you are a cop, only dif­fer­ence is that in the case of a cop, that fear is trans­lat­ed into awareness.

Dr. Carolyn Gomes is a pedi­atric doc­tor who is head of the group which calls itself Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ). The Group presents itself as a legit­i­mate Human Rights Agency. However time and again by their very actions, they have put that legit­i­ma­cy into ques­tion. Human Rights is a fun­da­men­tal right which is giv­en by God, not just to crim­i­nals, not just to peo­ple who have been vic­tim­ized by the state or it’s agents, but to everyone.

One of the most fun­da­men­tal right guar­an­teed to us is the right to life, yet the high­ly mis­guid­ed Dr. Gomes fail to rec­og­nize that sim­ple fact. As I have said every­one has the right to the life and human dig­ni­ty bestowed by our cre­ator. … … And yes Dr. Gomes even the mur­der­ers who you so stout­ly defend have a right to life.

My own view is that even though I respect the sanc­ti­ty of human life I would pre­fer to spend my time advo­cat­ing for the inno­cent. I would rather spend my time advo­cat­ing for the approx­i­mate­ly 1600 Jamaicans who are report­ed mur­dered each year for the last decade plus .

I would rather advo­cate for…

♦The inno­cent peo­ple burned out of their homes.

♦The count­less women vio­lent­ly raped , too scared to report it to author­i­ties because of threats to their lives and that of fam­i­ly members.

♦The lit­tle boys and girls forced into a life of pros­ti­tu­tion because a fam­i­ly mem­ber lost a gun belong­ing to the area don. Forced to pay, for the rest of their lives, with their lives, for some­thing they nev­er lost themselves.

♦The moth­ers and fathers who are forced to send their daugh­ters away to give them a chance to grow up free from rape from the don , then report them miss­ing to the police to save their own lives.

I could go on and on Dr. Gomes but you get the picture.

There are some who are fooled by the actions of peo­ple like Dr. Gomes and oth­ers, believ­ing that every­one who comes in the name of Human Rights are legit­i­mate, sor­ry I live in a coun­try where there are many prob­lems of Human Rights, and where Human Rights advo­ca­cy abounds.

One thing is cer­tain Human Rights can­not, and is not allowed to inter­fere with the rule of law. As impor­tant as the indi­vid­ual right is, it can­not come at the expense of the many.

Extra-Judicial killings are immoral and ille­gal, Police Officers who kill sum­mar­i­ly should and must be removed from the Force or any police depart­ment in any civ­i­lized coun­try. With that said Extra-judi­cial killings can­not be deter­mined by the amount of peo­ple killed by police. Each case of police shooting/​killing is a sep­a­rate inci­dent, has sep­a­rate and defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics which deter­mines whether they con­form to the use of lethal force guide­lines out­lined to officers.

If they don’t they are not nec­es­sar­i­ly ille­gal, they are not nec­es­sar­i­ly mur­der, there is a lot of space between jus­ti­fi­able homi­cide and mur­der. Officer made a mis­take, sus­pect act­ed like he had a weapon, sus­pect attacked offi­cer had no weapon, sus­pect is shot.….

Is that murder?

Where is the mal­ice aforethought?

You see Dr. Gomes, you alleg­ing extra-judi­cial killings is syn­ony­mous to me alleg­ing that you are sum­mar­i­ly and ille­gal­ly dis­pens­ing drugs to chil­dren who do not need it. Without know­ing how many babies you see each year, how sick they are, what ill­ness­es you dis­pense drugs for, or how many times per day you do write prescriptions.

You are still prac­tic­ing med­i­cine aren’t you? If not ‚you should con­cen­trate on what you have been trained to do. Go back to tak­ing care of babies and let the cops take care of the terrorists.