Jamaica’s Police Commissioner has succumbed to public pressure and has finally broken his silence in the matter in the murder of 17 years old Kingston College student Khajeel Mais.
Young Mais a passenger in a taxi-cab, on his way to a fete at another High School, lost his life when the cab in which he was a passenger was involved in an accident, the cab allegedly rear ended a luxury BMW-x6 sport utility vehicle.
Reports are that the driver of the BMW emerged from his vehicle gun in hand, and commenced to fire on the cab,the driver realizing that he was being shot at, turned his cab around and fled in the opposite direction.
He later realized that his young passenger was dead, a bullet to the head, the cab driver escaped physical injury.
The statement from the Commissioner yesterday defending his Department’s handling of this matter was an intelligent, well thought concise and deliberate Thesis on Policy and procedure, A statement I would have been proud of, if the circumstances of its delivery were different,.
However, despite all of what Mister Ellington has explained he still has not given a plausible reason for the fact that to date the name of the suspect has not been released.
We can understand the explanation he gave regarding the fact that the suspect is a citizen of the United States and the potential problems releasing his name could have caused,we get that, however the suspect by the Commissioner’s own admission is back in the Country, and in his custody, by all indications the suspect will be charged criminally with the death of young mister Mais,if this is correct, whether he will face an Identification Parade or not there is no logical reason for the public to be kept in the dark as to his identity.
And while we are at it let’s hope that the JCF is not building a case on the evidence gleaned from a potential ID Parade alone.
The Commissioner , despite his explanations knows fully well that the decision he and the other principals he named made to keep the public in the dark is one that is disingenuous,and does nothing to engender trust or respect for an Agency floundering from lack of both.
When all is said and done the charges made by the public about a perceived double standard in the Police handling of this case still stands , when all the platitudes are peeled back, what we are left with is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
How say you?
mike beckles
