Officers Are Stressed Out …

One of the argu­ments we hear from Jamaica’s self pro­claimed Elites is “oh we need a pro­fes­sion­al police force” . Noble indeed and we all would like that but lets look at some facts. I live in the United States which has thou­sands of police depart­ments and oh boy I cau­tion you peo­ple who claim to know every­thing about what a great police force should be, be care­ful what you ask for . I pose this ques­tion to you against the back­drop of low­er police shoot­ings, high­er inci­dences of homi­cides and oth­er seri­ous crimes and police suicides.

Under what cir­cum­stances would you be com­fort­able with police offi­cers in Jamaica killing unarmed cit­i­zens claim­ing they are in fear for their lives and have those killing be ruled juatified?
Be care­ful what you ask for .
Under no cir­cum­stance would a Jamaican offi­cer be deemed in the right if he or she was to shoot an unarmed sus­pect despite the lev­el of dan­ger posed by that sus­pect. I should know I was a police offi­cer on the mean streets of Kingston and across the coun­try. At best dur­ing my ser­vice years I was at the rather intim­i­dat­ing height of 5 feet 8 inch­es tall and weigh­ing a max­i­mum of 145 pounds. Literally every­one was big­ger than me , yet as impos­ing as most of these peo­ple were I would not be able to legit­i­mate­ly use lethal force against any­one despite the fact that the law implic­it­ly gave me that right. That right to use lethal force if my life or the life of anoth­er is in dan­ger is inter­pret­ed dif­fer­ent­ly in Jamaica. In order for an offi­cer to make that claim with any degree of suc­cess the assailant must have a gun or a large machete. Even if a dan­ger­ous assailant is armed with a knife and pos­es a direct threat to offi­cers lethal force by offi­cers are deemed excessive.
For the most part many with­in the Jamaican soci­ety would rather see a dead cop than a dead criminal.

Despite the fact that a much big­ger indi­vid­ual has the pow­er to cause seri­ous bod­i­ly harm with his bare hands and may poten­tial­ly turn any inan­i­mate object into a lethal weapon the laws are not inter­pret­ed that way in favor of police offi­cers , not by the anti-police judges who dis­pense their brand of jus­tice on the Island and cer­tain­ly not in the court of pub­lic opinion.
Bear in mind that Jamaican crim­i­nals are par­tic­u­lar­ly vio­lent. Is there any won­der Police offi­cers are stressed out and are tak­ing out their prob­lems on those close to themselves?

Let me qual­i­fy two things before the cyn­ics pounce. (1) I am not advo­cat­ing the killing of unarmed civil­ians . I mere­ly made the point metaphor­i­cal­ly for the ben­e­fit of those who pre­tend to know how American Police Departments oper­ate and yearn for their oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures. And (2) I am not sug­gest­ing that it’s okay for offi­cers to bring home prob­lems and make their fam­i­ly mem­bers pay for what they are going through.
It’s impor­tant to note how­ev­er that in the United States Police offi­cers do get accused of being involved in phys­i­cal vio­lence against their spous­es. I must has­ten to add that being a police offi­cer in Jamaica is far more stress­ful than it could ever be any­where in the United States.

I am not equat­ing the two . I am aware of the vast dis­par­i­ty in wealth between the two coun­tries. Again I mere­ly use the United States because the peo­ple who debate these issues tend to see the United States as the ulti­mate met­ric by which all oth­er coun­tries should be judged. As some­one who have lived in the United States for over two decades I see things dif­fer­ent­ly than those who see things from their tele­vi­sion screens.
I am par­tic­u­lar­ly mind­ful of these truths about a few of the ills fac­ing Jamaican cops.
Low wages. The dan­gers asso­ci­at­ed with the job. Internal pres­sures with­in the job. Lack of sup­port from the polit­i­cal direc­torate. And now anoth­er Agency to sec­ond guess and Monday morn­ing quar­ter-back every action they take .
I humbly sug­gest that the lev­els of sui­cides and mur­der-sui­cides being com­mit­ted by mem­bers of the JCF will be just the tip of the ice­berg com­pared to whats to come.

Over the last month and a half sev­er­al offi­cers have been killed in the line of duty. One Corporal is alleged to have com­mit­ted sui­cide. And just recent­ly a con­sta­ble is alleged to have killed his girl­friend and turned his weapon on him­self. One does not have to be a psy­chol­o­gist to under­stand that there is a cri­sis with­in the police department.
Everyone needs a word of com­fort and a pat on the back some­time no mat­ter how old and griz­zled we are. One of the char­ac­ter­is­tics a leader should pos­sess is the abil­i­ty to empathize. Leaders cry with their peo­ple , grieve with fam­i­lies , their empa­thy is sup­posed to lift a nation.
As Winston Churchill was able to do amidst the ruins of London dur­ing world war two, great lead­ers inspire peo­ple to rise and accom­plish great­ness amidst dev­as­ta­tion ruin and despair.

Unfortunately Jamaica has no leader . What we have is some­one bare­ly lit­er­ate. Someone who lacks the basic under­stand­ing that her posi­tion requires her to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the people,particularly those in her employ. But how can she? She is pos­sessed with the desire nev­er to talk her­self out of the job she should nev­er have been allowed to hold in the first place.
Many of the offi­cers now suf­fer­ing went into vot­ing booths and elect­ed this incom­pe­tent to office and they will live or die with their decisions.