Noël Asphall A Towering Patriot Who Served His Country With Distinction Passes…

Whether we like it or not, all of us come with a sell-by date, like yogurt, we even­tu­al­ly expire and must be tossed out if not out of desire, out of how impos­si­ble it is for any­one to be around us.
Despite our stamped sell-by date, it is rather dif­fi­cult when our loved ones creep up to that date when we even­tu­al­ly have to say goodbye.
Sadness, shock, aban­don­ment, hurt, dis­ap­point­ment, and a whole range of oth­er emo­tions engulf us even as we rec­on­cile that, giv­en time, death is some­thing assigned to all of us.
Some of those very emo­tions washed over me yes­ter­day as sev­er­al for­mer col­leagues texted me the news that our men­tor and friend, Detective Deputy Superintendent Noël Asphall, had passed.

Having grad­u­at­ed from the Police Academy in December of 1982 as a mem­ber of the first batch to com­mence and com­plete train­ing at the Twickenham Park train­ing facil­i­ty, I would be involved in oth­er firsts in my decade-long career in the JCF.
Having been dis­persed to the Beat & Foot Patrol on West Street down­town Kingston in time for the Christmas hol­i­day, I was shocked a mere three months lat­er that I would be among a small group of young offi­cers to be sent to the Mobile Reserve.
It was the first time offi­cers not trained specif­i­cal­ly for, and by the Mobile, Reserve would be dis­persed to that division.
It was not some­thing I desired nor want­ed, so I did not arrive at that facil­i­ty a hap­py camper.
At the time, the Mobile Reserve was brand­ed as a place for big offi­cers who could swing a baton in times of riot. It was rumored to be a place where careers went to die if for noth­ing else, the sheer num­ber of offi­cers sta­tioned there.
I was a slight­ly built guy, 5 feet 8 inch­es tall on a good day and weigh­ing at best with my boots on 155 pounds. I did not feel that I had any busi­ness there-nei­ther did I want to be there.
Despite my ani­mus toward the place, I moved from the reg­u­lar ho-hum of the dai­ly grind to a sec­tor that suit­ed my style bet­ter; I was a mem­ber of the forty-some­thing strong Ranger Squad.
It was from that squad that, in my mind, I was res­cued as one of four offi­cers to go to Constant Spring CIB because the pop­u­lar Cornwall (Bigga ) Ford was being trans­ferred to CIB Headquarters.
The four were E Marston, Allen Gauntlett, Keith Scully, and Michael Beckles.

It was there that I start­ed to enjoy my work as a police offi­cer under the tute­lage and guid­ance of Detective Inspector Noël Asphall, a man we affec­tion­ate­ly called (stom­ach), just nev­er to his face. (smile) A man who was­n’t per­fect, only because per­fec­tion and human fal­li­bil­i­ty made that an impossibility.
Mister Aspall was a big man, not over­ly tall, but he had a com­mand­ing pres­ence, the kind of pres­ence that caus­es every­one in the room to stop doing what they were doing when he walked in com­pared to some­one like me, who no one looked up at.
Mister Asphall’s pres­ence and how we react­ed around him could nev­er be mis­con­strued as out of fear or dis­dain; we all respect­ed and loved him.
His strict dis­ci­pline, guid­ance, car­ing nature, and the way he guid­ed and pro­tect­ed us were some­thing many of today’s lead­ers can only hope to emu­late. His abil­i­ty to moti­vate caused us to work extreme­ly long hours with­out addi­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion in ser­vice to the res­i­dents of Saint Andrew North and our coun­try over­all. That will be his endur­ing legacy.
Under Noël Asphall’s guid­ance, the Saint Andrew North Detectives became the envy of the entire coun­try. It was not a func­tion of who the Area com­mand­ing offi­cer was, nor who the Divisional offi­cer was. Neither was it because of who the Divisional crime offi­cer was at any giv­en time.
During my time, we had Rudolph Dwyer, Garnett Daley, and Anthony Hewitt as Detective Area Crime offi­cers at dif­fer­ent inter­vals; all had their pos­i­tives, but it was Noël Asphall who got us to pro­duce what we did.

One of my esteemed for­mer col­leagues was kind enough to sup­ply me with a list of offi­cers who served in mis­ter Asphall’s CIB. Speaking of Detective Seargeant Keith Scully who is still serv­ing. We rem­i­nisced this morn­ing about the pos­i­tives of the man we pri­vate­ly called (Stomach) but to his face affec­tion­ate­ly referred to as (Spec).
We talked about those who served with us under his tute­lage and guid­ance; I list some here.
We all mourn your pass­ing, sir.
Female Detectives Yasmin Ankle & Webber the men Devon Watkiss, Cornwall Ford, Colin Pinnock, Wilford Gayle, Dayton Henry, Dean Taylor, Donald McInnis, Barrington Campbell, Dadrick Henry, Linval Henry, George Henry, Altimorth Campbell, Elwin Cameron, Eric Dawes, Sylvanus Ellison, Keith Scully, Michael Beckles, Allen Gauntlet, Walter Grant, Élan Powell, Errol Mcleish, Shane Foster, D Foster, Tony Frye, C Greene, Artel Antonio Morgan, Glasford Dacres, Leroy Hanson, Fitz Tracey, Carlton Henry, Leroy Hanson, Allan Campbell, and more.……
Any offi­cer I may have omit­ted to men­tion, please for­give me; it has been 30 plus years since I left.
The respect and love Mister Asphall com­mand­ed far exceed­ed the detec­tives who were his charge; uni­formed cops from far and wide loved and respect­ed him.
That love and respect were evi­dent in the way mem­bers of the pub­lic react­ed to his pres­ence. We will for­ev­er miss this tow­er­ing leader who, with­out try­ing, demon­strat­ed through his life work that doing the job of a police offi­cer is not about hype or fan­cy degrees- He got the job done by the char­ac­ter­is­tics I attrib­uted to him.
Walk good sir. In 1991, when I decid­ed to call it quits, you called me aside and told me that you were pained to see me go, that you would miss me but that if you were at my age, you would have made the same deci­sion I was making.
We spent many hours togeth­er both on and off the job, many of them at your grandad’s place in Brandon Hill, you called me your son, and I will miss you like hell. Part of who I am today is a result of the man you were.
My con­do­lences to his beloved wife Sonia and the rest of his fam­i­ly. Rest well, sir, until we meet again.….….

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.