Public Defender’s Claims Tantamount To Little Mongrels Pissing On Every Tree Trying To Establish Territory

Yesterday I talked about Judges as I reg­is­tered my sup­port for the Commissioner of Police. The Commissioner spoke, albeit years late and still tongue in cheek as he parsed his words, over­ly care­ful not to offend. He final­ly spoke out about the lib­er­al judges allow­ing dan­ger­ous con­vict­ed crim­i­nals back onto the streets(my words).
On the oth­er hand, I have con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that the lit­tle bureau­crats that work in the var­i­ous gov­ern­ment agen­cies oper­ate as demigods.
They are so drunk on pow­er that they often­times for­get to do their jobs. Flossing and media-hog­ging have become a way of life for these lit­tle tad­poles in this dirty lit­tle pond.
For years I com­plained about INDECOM, The Public Defender, The Judiciary, and oth­er pub­lic bod­ies that oper­ate not as impor­tant parts of a unit but as free-stand­ing units divorced from the body.
Terrence Williams’s tenure as head of INDECOM made the pub­lic office a grand­stand­ing stage for self-pro­mo­tion; Earl Witter and oth­ers have also hogged the lime­light as they sought out the micro­phones to get their names in the newspapers.
Unfortunately, when all is said and done, the pub­lic has pre­cious lit­tle to show for either of the two gen­tle­men’s tenure at their respec­tive posts.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​i​o​n​e​r​-​a​n​d​e​r​s​o​n​-​s​p​e​a​k​s​-​o​u​t​-​a​g​a​i​n​s​t​-​j​u​d​g​e​s​-​l​a​t​e​-​a​n​d​-​h​a​l​f​-​h​e​a​r​t​e​d​-​w​e​l​l​-​k​i​n​da/

So no one should be sur­prised that the present Public Defender, Arlene Harrison-Henry, is no dif­fer­ent from oth­ers. If they have any­thing to do with an issue gen­er­at­ing inter­est or dis­cus­sion, they will milk it for what­ev­er it’s worth to get all of the eye­balls they can get on themselves.
Knowing how these pub­lic ser­vants oper­ate, I called on the police com­mis­sion­er to imme­di­ate­ly con­duct a swift and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions that a Rastafarian woman was alleged­ly trimmed against her will at the Four Paths Police Station in Clarendon weeks ago.
Doing so would have earned some degree of ven­er­a­tion for the police, as opposed to the scorn that would be heaped on them were the inves­ti­ga­tions to drag on.
It would also deny the grand­standers a soap­box, at least for the long term.

Harrison-Henry claimed that as part of her duty to inves­ti­gate the alle­ga­tions sur­round­ing the 19-year-old Rastafarian Nzinga King being forcibly trimmed by an offi­cer, she went to the sta­tion to con­duct her investigations.
She alleges that she was accom­pa­nied by Deputy Public Defender Herbert McKenzie and Special Projects Manager Victor Hemmings.
She told the media that she spoke to a sergeant who told her he need­ed to speak to his supe­ri­ors about grant­i­ng her access to the station.
(Good job, Sergeant)
She said the sergeant left to speak to a supe­ri­or then returned to tell her that she must get the Commissioner of Police’s writ­ten permission.
Harrison-Henry argues that view­ing the lay­out of the police sta­tion is crit­i­cal to the inves­ti­ga­tion, as it would show where the alleged inci­dent occurred.
After she was denied access, she wrote to the Commissioner of Police, stat­ing that it was a breach of Section 25 (b) of the Public Defender (Interim) Act. Section 25 (b) states: Every per­son who (i) obstructs, hin­ders, or resists the pub­lic defend­er or any oth­er per­son in the exe­cu­tion of his func­tions under this Act; or (ii) fails to com­ply with any law­ful require­ment of the pub­lic defend­er or any oth­er per­son under this Act; or (iii) con­tra­venes the pro­vi­sions of sec­tion 14 (4); or © in a man­ner incon­sis­tent with his duty under sec­tion 21 (l), deals with doc­u­ments, infor­ma­tion or things men­tioned in that sub­sec­tion, shall be guilty of an offense and shall be liable on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion before a res­i­dent mag­is­trate [now parish court judge] to a fine not exceed­ing $50,000 or to impris­on­ment not exceed­ing 12 months, or to both such fine and impris­on­ment. She said her office told the com­mis­sion­er that it would warn the deputy super­in­ten­dent of police at the sta­tion for pros­e­cu­tion. “On September 9, we pre­pared our warn­ing for pros­e­cu­tion and had it served at the May Pen Police Station on September 14,” Harrison Henry said.

Here is the thing, the Public Defender has her pow­ers grant­ed to her by the Jamaican Parliament, so too does the Commissioner of Police. As a secu­ri­ty Agency, the Police have every right to have prop­er pro­to­cols fol­lowed at its facilities.
The Public Defender has every right to be allowed access to con­duct her inves­ti­ga­tions, but that right does not super­sede her need to fol­low protocol.
These lit­tle mat­ters war­rant no fuss, but these lit­tle bureau­crats are like lit­tle mon­grels piss­ing on every tree try­ing to estab­lish ter­ri­to­ry and authority.
In the same way that the Public Defender found the time and neces­si­ty to write to com­plain to the Police Commissioner why did she not write to let him know that she and her offi­cers would be vis­it­ing the sta­tion as part of the inves­ti­ga­to­ry process and that they would need access not open to ordi­nary mem­bers of the public?
I believe that the Commissioner of Police would have not only flung the gates open for her, but he would also have pro­vid­ed an escort for her and her team.
But fol­low­ing pro­to­col and avoid­ing the ker­fuf­fle would not have gen­er­at­ed any excite­ment as she went about doing what­ev­er she need­ed to do, cre­at­ing false dis­agree­ments does.
Jamaicans need these agen­cies to be there as bul­warks against tyran­ny from all quar­ters; it is, there­fore, imper­a­tive that the peo­ple who head these impor­tant agen­cies oper­ate less in the lime­light and more behind the scenes to car­ry out the man­date they were given.
A Government Agency fight­ing with anoth­er gov­ern­ment Agency in anoth­er Agency of Government does no one any good.
Enough with the grand­stand­ing already and get on with the task at hand.….

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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.