Almost three decades ago tactical units like the Ranger Squad were front and center in the fight against Jamaica’s bloodthirsty killers and rapists.
After the high profile sweeps and operations were concluded these officers including myself would go back to the Mobile Reserve change into civilian clothes and go stand at a bus-stop waiting for one of the crammed roving disasters which traversed South Camp Road under the guise of public transport to get home.
Nothing is wrong with public transportation, in fact major developed metropolises in Asia , Europe and even the United States has demonstrated that public transportation can be quite effective in moving huge amounts of people in densely populated centers.
Police officers at that time were poorly paid and could barely afford rental above cross roads , which effectively forced us to live in communities with high incidents of crime.
In other words officers were forced to live in the very communities they just went in to remove the urban terrorists.
Thirty years ago there was an inordinate amount of guns in the hands of the Island’s criminals, today the amount of guns and ammunition in their hands is mind boggling.
Thirty years ago the hierarchy of the JCF steadfastly refused to allow rank and file police officers the basic right to carry home their service weapons to protect the lives of their families and their own lives.
Ironically the khaki-clad imbeciles who made those decisions did not take public transportation home.
They carried firearm.
Could afford to live in decent low crime communities.
And they had minimal to no negative interaction with the public.
So even though they were not targeted, they lived in safer neighborhoods , were not exposed to the dangers of dealing with the killers on public transportation and had reserved and maintained the means to defend themselves , they denied the people under their supervision those same rights.
Many people criticize me because of the uncompromising stance I took against the hierarchy of the force not just after leaving it but also during my brief tenure as a police officer.
For the most part I thought they were grossly corrupt. Grossly incompetent. Grossly ignorant. Grossly stupid, and gross political imbeciles but for a few exceptions.
On more than one occasion their corrupt practices placed the lives of junior officers including my own at risk. For those transgressions I will not be forgiving.
Today these imbeciles are doing the very same things they were doing yesteryear.
They are steadfastly refusing to allow front-line officers the basic right to carry their service weapons at all time.
Today Jamaica is flooded with high powered weapons of all kinds and they are all in the hands of the criminal underworld.
They kill anyone, including police officers without batting an eye.
The Police high command issues warnings to officers about the threats against their lives. encouraging them to protect themselves at all times.
Even as Carl Williams the commissioner of police and his bunch of bang-bellied lackeys issue these advisory’s, they systematically take the weapons from officers, making defense of their lives a certain exercise in futility, an impossibility even.
Sure they can apply for licences for personal firearms but it takes approximately six months to a year to a get a license from the FLA the agency responsible for issuing firearms licences. Police officers get no special treatment even there. Their lives do not matter.
The JCF sets up the rank and file officers to be killed .
This is nothing new . Years ago a small group of us were sent to Runaway Bay on special assignment , one evening a colleague and I were sitting in a bar and lounge in Priory when a group of well dressed men at one section of the bar sent us over four beers , we accepted the beers but almost immediately sent them four beers as well.
One gentlemen bellowed” your money nu good ere offica” , we were stunned, how could they have know we were cops?
The well dressed man pulled me aside to a corner and handed me an envelope with some cash, I took it opened it , thanked him and handed it back to him, I thanked him but explained to him that we were okay.
I only wanted answers to one question, “how could he have known we were police officers”.
He told us our superiors tell them everything, including that we were coming to the area.
On another occasion I was one of two uniformed officers and a small group of soldiers dropped from helicopter into the hills of Westmoreland , supposedly to watch an illegal airstrip and intercept any aircraft landing to transport Marijuana out . Six days later without any cover other than that which the trees offered, rain-drenched then sun-dried I decided to call the Mobile Reserve to find out when we would be picked up. The duty officer told me he didn’t even know we were there.
Upon breaking camp a young man herding some goats told us we were laughing stock as his boss already knew we were there.
Our superiors had told them.
Imagine the risk to our lives, being in the woods not knowing that the very people who sent us were the very people who told the airstrip owner exactly where we were.
Then came the irony of all ironies, the very same person sent his driver to take us to the military base in Moneague, so we could hitch a ride back to Kingston that Saturday evening.
Having had only military dried rations, having been drenched with rain dried to a crisp in the sun and almost eaten alive by Mosquitoes did nothing to kindle the anger in me as much as the betrayal did.
The moronic arguments the police brass used then, is the moronic argument they use today.
They cannot trust young officers to take guns home.
How can you entrust a person with the awesome powers of a police officer,which includes that of life and death over others, yet argue that you are unable to trust them with guns?
Some including past members have said simply disband the force, I am now in agreement in theory, even as I am completely conversant of its practical impossibility.
Notwithstanding, as a matter of practicality ‚when a team performs poorly it is always up to the coaching and management staff to assume responsibility.
Since we have to source Jamaican officers from the same dirty pool from which we source the filthy dishonest politicians, lawyers, judges and others , lets work on creating a small cadre of competent leaders in the JCF which understand leadership and not dishonest grandstanding and profiling, the likes of which exists presently.
The problem was never with the young people entering the JCF . The fact is that today the department is bleeding roughly 800 officers through attrition annually.
Do the math on what it takes to train these young people only to see them do a couple of years then decide to leave once they realize what they are up against.
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Next we will talk about real corruption, and the job a single Prime Minister did, highhandedly destroying the ability of the investigative branch of the department to do it’s job resulting in the murder rate we have today and the woefully low rate of murder incarcerations.