Marching For Peace Is A Good Thing If There Is War , The Problem Is Crime Not War.

Though receptive to any positive approach which has the potential to bring some semblance of security back to Jamaica, I still worry that certain approaches are avoidance mechanisms which can only have a net negligible effect.

According to the Jamaica Information Service a peace march through the com­mu­ni­ties of Salt Spring and Norwood in the Parish of Saint James attract­ed a sig­nif­i­cant crowd of sup­port­ers .Organizers which includ­ed the Police,the Religious min­is­ters fra­ter­nal the Peace man­age­ment Unit and oth­ers believe their efforts are being reward­ed by the size of the crowds par­tic­i­pat­ing in the marches.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Sharon Beeput of the St James Police Division said the mas­sive sup­port giv­en to the peace march­es is an indi­ca­tion that the res­i­dents have grown tired of crime and vio­lence and are now speak­ing out. She point­ed out that a joined-up approach to fight­ing crime and vio­lence has been adopt­ed, with the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the Jamaica Defence Force lead­ing the process. “The police and sol­diers are in the com­mu­ni­ties car­ry­ing out their duties dai­ly. We also have per­sons from the Community Safety and Security Department who are also in the com­mu­ni­ty and they intend to stay,” DSP Beeput said. She not­ed that they work along with per­sons from the Citizen Security and Justice Programme, the PMI, and the Community Development Committee.

Art some­times have the uncan­ny abil­i­ty of imi­tat­ing life on oth­er occa­sions life return the flattery.

I recall the Jamaican film Third world cop , a film chock-full of local tal­ent which had as it’s lead Paul Campbell who was depict­ed as the erst­while loose can­non cop “Capone”.
Capone was no loose can­non , nei­ther had his brand of polic­ing become out­dat­ed, it was exact­ly what was need­ed to push back against the vis­cous crim­i­nals who had migrat­ed to the coun­try. Naturally always mak­ing the wrong deci­sions the police hier­ar­chy did not see it that way.
Capone’s seniors cer­tain­ly thought that though his results were unques­tioned his meth­ods were not sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly palatable.
Capone a no-non­sense Portland cop com­mit­ted the car­di­nal sin of killing a cop killer who came to kill him.
In the film anoth­er cop was kid­napped and used to direct the cop killer to Capone. Being the ladies man Capone was caught in a rather com­pro­mis­ing posi­tion with a lady friend.
The intend­ed killer told Capone “yu b***l cllat yu a yu mi cum fa”.!
Capone a street savvy cop was not going to roll over, he would have to go out fight­ing. No way would he capit­u­late to a com­mon punk who want­ed to take him out. Capone grad­u­al­ly eased his hand under the pil­low and clasped his depend­able 9mm Browning semi auto­mat­ic pis­tol, all the time telling the talk­a­tive cap­tive police ” sidung Floyd , sidung Floyd” so he could get a clear shot at his intend­ed killer.
Floyd hav­ing no clue about tactics,having no cop-sense con­tin­ued to blab­ber his mouth about how sor­ry he was to lead the killer to Capone..
Wanting to show his bru­tal­i­ty and desire to kill, the assailant stead­fast­ly put a bul­let in Floyd’s head stat­ing “yu b***d c***t yu, yu nu hea fi siddung”.
Knowing there would nev­er be anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to act ‚Capone took the shot neu­tral­iz­ing his would-be killer.

The irony inher­ent in that sec­tion of the movie is that Capone was told by his com­mand­ing offi­cer a female super­in­ten­dent that he was bet­ter suit­ed for Kingston,his brand of polic­ing was no longer needed.
Capone was trans­ferred to Kingston where he con­tin­ued to do police work as the streets demand­ed , the crim­i­nal under­world feared and respect­ed him.
His brand of polic­ing had not seen the end of it’s time , his ass-kiss­ing lap dog boss­es act­ing on the dic­tates of their pre­ten­tious pup­peteers thought it’s time had come.
It’s rather telling that when one watch­es these films , be it third World Cop, shot­tas, the hard­er they come or any oth­er clas­sic, the writ­ers ade­quate­ly depict the streets and what is need­ed to fight back against hard­ened crim­i­nals yet the com­mu­ni­ty at large, polit­i­cal intel­lec­tu­al, reli­gious, and even police are unable to grasp what script writ­ers so eas­i­ly under­stand and so deft­ly portray..

I’m unsure whether what is hap­pen­ing in these com­mu­ni­ties are open war­fare between var­i­ous fac­tions and if so. Why ? Or whether what is hap­pen­ing is ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty which is some­thing total­ly dif­fer­ent than war­ring factions.
If the real life female super­in­ten­den­t’s word is to be believed quote: ” The mas­sive sup­port giv­en to the peace march­es is an indi­ca­tion that the res­i­dents have grown tired of crime and vio­lence and are now speak­ing out “.
Then it’s high time that the police step in using what­ev­er means they have at their dis­pos­al to bring the cit­i­zens over to their side. Educating them on ways they may safe­ly report sus­pi­cious or crim­i­nal activ­i­ties in con­fi­dence with­out fear the infor­ma­tion will be passed on to crim­i­nals there­by plac­ing them at risk.
A mis­di­ag­no­sis of the prob­lem elic­it an improp­er response which will not cure the situation.
I am inclined to believe the lat­ter is the case, for the most part the days of war­ring fac­tions in parts of Spanish Town Kingston and St Andrew and oth­er areas are large­ly things of the past.
I fear that rather than con­front the crime Monster author­i­ties are putting a band aid on a sore as well as mis­di­ag­nos­ing the con­di­tion in which case the rem­e­dy being applied will have no pos­i­tive effect.
Marching for peace is a good thing if there is war , the prob­lem is crime not war it seem to me.