Police Officers Lives Must Matter In Jamaica..

On Monday gun­fire erupt­ed down­town Kingston. Though a nor­mal occur­rence this shoot­ing once again drove home the point that Jamaica is slow­ly creep­ing toward a point of no return.
Initial report­ing indi­cat­ed that shoot­ing broke out near an Armored Police Vehicle, of course the very same report stat­ed that offi­cers who were strate­gi­cal­ly placed in the area were on patrol when gun­men crept upon them and opened fire.
Later the very same Publication report­ed that none of the offi­cers were hurt but then updat­ed the report­ing that indeed one offi­cer was injured. We are left to won­der what kind of injury the Officer sustained.
In the mean­time new Information from the West Kingston Police sug­gest that the offi­cers were caught between two rival gangs from Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town respectively.

One of the mea­sures I have per­son­al­ly advo­cat­ed for is the removal of offi­cers from police sta­tion hous­es and plac­ing them instead in vehi­cles strate­gi­cal­ly around volatile com­mu­ni­ties. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly com­fort­able with the poten­tial con­ver­gence effect where Officers around a par­tic­u­lar zone would sim­ply col­lapse the zone when shoot­ings occur. Technically this would not elim­i­nate the prospect of shoot­ings occur­ring. It would how­ev­er cut off escape routes in the event there are shoot­ings, which would have the long-term cumu­la­tive effect of reduc­ing Gun offences.
This strat­e­gy can­not be effec­tive with­out the resources to do the job. Neither can it be effec­tive if the offi­cers are not well trained and crit­i­cal­ly aware of what they need to do.

In order to effec­tive­ly deal with Criminals par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Kingston Metropolitan area the topog­ra­phy must be con­sid­ered. All of the Young crim­i­nals know the escape routes which includes gul­lies , drains, cul­verts and oth­er arter­ies. This places law-enforce­ment at a strate­gic disadvantage.
So when we ask the legit­i­mate ques­tion why are the Police unable to catch the peo­ple who are com­mit­ting crimes even when they are in the imme­di­ate area dur­ing the com­mis­sion of some of these crimes we must bear those facts in mind.

Most of the Nations infra­struc­ture was not cre­at­ed with the future in mind, they sim­ply built for the moment. To date the same failed strate­gies are being employed despite input from inter­est­ed par­ties and oth­er Analysts. Additionally ‚unplanned shanties and ille­gal dwellings add to the list of wor­ries Law enforce­ment faces in Cities and Towns across the Island.
Evidence of the plan­ning myopia may be found in the Portmore com­mu­ni­ties. These com­mu­ni­ties are cre­at­ed with res­i­dents hav­ing to park their cars in pre­scribed areas then walk along alley­ways to get to their homes. Those Alley-ways gen­er­al­ly have walls on either sides cre­at­ing a vir­tu­al death trap for res­i­dents in the event crim­i­nals decide to tar­get them.
Guess what not only have crim­i­nals tar­get­ed res­i­dents of these com­mu­ni­ties, they have actu­al­ly tak­en up res­i­dence in many Portmore com­mu­ni­ties cre­at­ing a polic­ing night­mare for Authorities.
Opportunities for com­mit­ting crimes are nev­er lost on Jamaican crim­i­nals. They con­tin­ue to exploit every oppor­tu­ni­ty they are giv­en to expand their net­work of crim­i­nal activities.
Most crimes are crimes of oppor­tu­ni­ty. Criminals are basi­cal­ly low life preda­tors who pounce on avail­able oppor­tu­ni­ties. Countries and Individuals can­not be in the busi­ness of cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for crim­i­nals. Yet the same failed strate­gies are being employed across the board with­out thought for effec­tive law enforcement.

Notwithstanding all of the fore­gone, if the ele­ments I allud­ed to were imme­di­ate­ly reversed the Police would still do a shit­ty job with their hands tied behind their backs and (inde­com) breath­ing down their necks.
The Nation made a tac­ti­cal deci­sion to cre­ate anoth­er police agency sole­ly to police the police. This agency have no respon­si­bil­i­ty to reduce crime, none at all. This agency faces none of the risks the police face. Yet the Agency received wide rang­ing pow­ers and sup­port to go after those who have to face the bullets .

I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in the noisy chat­ter that there must be account­abil­i­ty for police actions. There is no doubt about that. No one is more incensed than I when Police betray their sacred oath by break­ing the trust placed in them.
What I am not pre­pared to do is to have a con­ver­sa­tion with any­one who dim-wit­ted­ly argue that the way to have police account­abil­i­ty is cre­ate the envi­ron­ment where police offi­cers have their brains blown out of their heads or their leg sev­ered, lying in bushy-fields by some mag­gots on a Bus or a piece of garbage on a motor­cy­cle. The lives of Police Officers must mat­ter in Jamaica.

For years Administrations of both polit­i­cal par­ties stood by and watched as crime metas­ta­sized yet they did noth­ing to stop it. What they did was to make it more and more dif­fi­cult for police to do their jobs. The result is police apa­thy and dis­in­ter­est. This con­tin­ued as good police offi­cers exit­ed the stage and cor­rup­tion took over the force. The politi­cians were incred­i­bly hap­py for that out­come , it was the out­come they desired and (inde­com) was born. This is not to say there are not great police offi­cers in the depart­ment. On the con­trary these heroes con­tin­ue to fight the good fight dai­ly with­out sup­port from their supe­ri­ors or the Government.
Those on the out­side are free to spew garbage out of hatred and igno­rance. Those of us who served saw the strate­gic dis­man­tling of the depart­ment, leav­ing in it’s place an inef­fec­tive paper tiger.
Between pub­lic cries of mur­der aid­ed by politi­cians. Criminal Dons who pay pro­fes­sion­al mourn­ers to tes­ti­fy that they saw shoot-out which occured at 3:am. A Media which glee­ful­ly pro­vid­ed the plat­form and those who active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in remov­ing guns from shoot­ing scenes as police defend their lives under sus­tained gun­fire. The stage was set for what we see today.

For years there was strate­gic plan to paint the police as mur­der­ers this was effec­tive­ly done by remov­ing weapons from shoot­ing scenes . After the shoot­ing end­ed police were left with dead bod­ies and no guns. This in and of itself forced offi­cers to take mea­sures to pro­tect them­selves from going to prison. What police offi­cers do not need are croc­o­dile tears from Politicians or (inde­com) when offi­cers are killed. What they need are laws to pro­tect them, a removal of the cuffs from their wrists and a peo­ple deserv­ing of their sacrifice.