Remarkably ‚despite the increased proliferation of social media and smart recording devices many in Jamaica are blissfully ignorant as to what their civic duties are under the law. The lack of civic pride begs the question ‚do they even teach Civics in school anymore?.
The level of incivility and ignorance in the society is beyond alarming as it relates to what citizens should do when dealing with law-enforcement.
Set aside the glaring violence on the streets. Set aside the village lawyers and the arm-chair and key-board generals . Even those who are supposed to be in the know are shockingly ignorant of their responsibilities as citizens.

Who does not know that as cit­i­zens we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to sur­ren­der peace­ably to being arrest­ed the minute an offi­cer tells you you are under arrest?
What can rea­son­ably be gained by engag­ing in a fight with offi­cers of the law who have the pow­er to take your life ?

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​f​i​g​h​t​i​n​g​-​w​i​t​h​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​-​c​i​t​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​i​n​d​e​c​o​m​-​a​c​t​-​i​s​-​s​i​l​l​y​-​a​n​d​-​d​a​n​g​e​r​o​us/

In an arti­cle I wrote yes­ter­day I spoke to my dis­gust with the hier­ar­chy of the police force and the police fed­er­a­tion . In that arti­cle I called for the dis­band­ment of the high com­mand and the use­less fed­er­a­tion. Today an Assistant Commissioner of Police got up off his rear end and issued state­ments relat­ing to cit­i­zens respon­si­bil­i­ties as well as police rules gov­ern­ing arrests.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​a​n​y​-​m​o​r​e​-​w​i​l​l​-​s​u​f​f​e​r​-​m​a​n​y​-​m​o​r​e​-​w​i​l​l​-​h​a​v​e​-​t​o​-​d​i​e​-​r​nm/

This from the Jamaicagleaner​.com

Assistant Commissioner of Police Norman Heywood is of the view that the man­ner in which Jamaicans are socialised is what usu­al­ly caus­es them to resist arrest by the police.

He has joined the many per­sons com­ment­ing on the inci­dent in which the police tried to arrest a woman, cell-phone footage of which vent viral on social media. Some view­ers accused the police of being bru­tal in their treat­ment of the woman. Others, includ­ing Hamish Campbell, deputy com­mis­sion­er of police, the Independent Commission of Investigations, felt the police were only try­ing to restrain her.

Heywood told The Gleaner yes­ter­day that if cit­i­zens had an appre­ci­a­tion for law and order, they would not be quick to video­tape the police’s attempts to arrest per­sons, but would instead encour­age these peo­ple to com­ply with the officers.

“What we need is more cit­i­zens com­ing out and stand­ing up for law and order instead of video­tap­ing an inci­dent between a police and a civil­ian. Normally, some peo­ple come on and see a sit­u­a­tion build­ing up between the police and a cit­i­zen. Instead of say­ing, ‘stop resist­ing the police’ [they start video­tap­ing],” he said.

“I think it’s how the soci­ety is being social­ized. There is a gen­er­al lack of order in soci­ety, and it’s in every walk of life. People feel that there is no respon­si­bil­i­ty on their part. If you want to live in an order­ly soci­ety, cit­i­zens must real­ize that they have respon­si­bil­i­ty. They have a duty to coöper­ate with law and order. If you feel that you were wrong­ly arrest­ed then you will have your day in court. If you do not, you end up in a soci­ety of chaos and every­body will do what they want to do.”

Heywood also high­light­ed that the force the police use at the point of effect­ing an arrest was heav­i­ly depen­dent on the exist­ing threat level.
Read more here: http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​a​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​7​2​7​/​i​f​-​y​o​u​r​e​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​d​o​n​t​-​f​i​g​h​t​-​p​o​l​ice

If social media threads are appro­pri­ate barom­e­ters of pub­lic per­cep­tions, Jamaica is in seri­ous trouble.
There seem to be a con­cert­ed attempt at will­ful igno­rance. Not an igno­rance born out of the inabil­i­ty to learn ‚but one of bel­liger­ence blus­ter and pure bull-shit bravado.
We could set aside the laugh­able insan­i­ty of the com­ments if they weren’t so dangerous.
What is the obses­sion with resist­ing arrest? How is that a win­ning strat­e­gy , par­tic­u­lar­ly if the offi­cers are deter­mined to make that arrest?

I made hun­dreds of arrests in my ten years of ser­vice and I would be lying if I said I did not have sus­pects resist.
What I can absolute­ly say is that there was nev­er one instance where a sus­pect who decid­ed to resist made me change my mind about that arrest.
If any­thing, a resist­ing sus­pect made me absolute­ly more res­olute that that sus­pect was going to jail by what­ev­er means necessary.

Believing that resist­ing arrest is a work­able strat­e­gy is fools gold.