Threats Against Jamaican Cops:

The Police High Command in Jamaica has raised the threat lev­el against its mem­bers to extreme, in the Saint Catherine, north , south and the Clarendon Divisions, this means that as far as they are con­cerned, offi­cers who live and work in those Divisions and their fam­i­lies , as well as oth­er police per­son­nel pass­ing through , doing busi­ness ‚or vis­it­ing those divi­sions are also under the threat of death.

Criminals in any soci­ety who threat­en the lives of agents of the state do so because they are embold­ened because of one rea­son or anoth­er. There are only a few states in the world that would bow to threats from domes­tic ter­ror­ists, or are ill-equipped to han­dle low-lev­el punks with a few guns and big egos. The secu­ri­ty forces last May forced into a cor­ner and with no help from the polit­i­cal direc­torate, demon­strat­ed unequiv­o­cal­ly that they were capa­ble and had the will to erad­i­cate any domes­tic threat posed by local punks.

So then , why am I writ­ing a blog on this sub­ject? This seem like a reg­u­lar cut and dry issue for any democ­ra­cy , crim­i­nals hav­ing the temer­i­ty to threat­en the state are exter­mi­nat­ed right? Not so fast my dear friends, I do agree that would be the way things gets done in any oth­er coun­try in the world , cap­i­tal­ist or com­mu­nist, dic­ta­tor­ship, or democ­ra­cy. Just recent­ly the Government of Trinidad and Tobago insti­tut­ed a State of Emergency, not a (lim­it­ed state of emer­gency as was the case in Jamaica). The Trinidadian Government resolved to do what it took to give the nec­es­sary tools to its secu­ri­ty forces to flush out and erad­i­cate home-grown ter­ror­ists. They are well aware that left unchecked, crim­i­nals will do what we allow them to do, the Universe does not like a vacuum.

Women demand­ing that mur­der accused Adija Palmer, aka Vybz Kartel be freed from custody

http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​M​o​r​e​-​t​r​o​u​b​l​e​-​f​o​r​-​K​a​r​t​e​l​_​9​8​9​4​526

So why is this not the case in Jamaica? It seem like a nice place down there, lots of sun, fun, beach­es, it’s like, Jamaica no prob­lem right?.….….….….….….….….…..RIGHT.….?????

Well not exact­ly , you can’t buy a prod­uct based on the pack­ag­ing alone, beau­ti­ful wrap­per , shit­ty prod­uct, all of the above is true except the no prob­lem part. Our pol­i­tics is con­trolled by peo­ple who are less than hon­est, as is true in most nations with a major­i­ty black pop­u­la­tion it does seem that Jamaica is stuck with below mediocre polit­i­cal lead­ers who are hell-bent on fat­ten­ing them­selves and their cronies at the expense of the nation, this has gone on for decades. Both Political par­ties are aligned to crim­i­nal gangs and the lead­ers and oth­er oper­a­tives with­in each par­ty are deeply enmeshed with crim­i­nals. On both sides of the polit­i­cal divide Jamaica’s politi­cians are affil­i­at­ed with criminals .

It is of the gravest con­se­quence when the Prime Minister refus­es to hon­or an extra­di­tion treaty untill he was forced to , a treaty that would see a con­fessed gun-run­ner and drug deal­er get his just due.

It is of the gravest con­se­quence when the leader of the oppo­si­tion and his entire par­ty refused to vote to give the secu­ri­ty forces more spe­cial pow­ers even for a lim­it­ed time ‚which would see them con­sol­i­date the gains they made when they rout­ed the afore­men­tioned gun-run­ning , drug deal­er from his redoubt.

The Governing par­ty refused to let a crim­i­nal get extra­dit­ed . the oppo­si­tion pre­vent­ed the secu­ri­ty forces from going into their enclaves where they have twen­ty times the crim­i­nals in their camp. Both Political par­ties are crim­i­nal gangs, the police and Military are oper­at­ing in a vac­u­um unable to get the req­ui­site sup­port to effec­tive­ly erad­i­cate crim­i­nal terrorists.

So the answer to the ques­tion of why is this not an easy thing to do is sim­ple. Criminal polit­i­cal leaders. 

Pictures cour­tesy of Google

Pictured above are dif­fer­ent seg­ment of crowds of peo­ple from west­ern Kingston demon­strat­ing against the impend­ing extra­di­tion of con­fessed gun-run­ner and drug deal­er Christopher dudus Coke, now in US custody.

Jamaica’s cur­rent Prime Minister Orett Bruce Golding is now in the final stages of step­ping down from office,or so he says, even before com­plet­ing a full term. Golding is severe­ly dam­aged from his han­dling of an extra­di­tion request made by the United States Government for Christopher Dudus Coke the pre­em­i­nent enforcer of the for­mer so-called moth­er of all Garrison com­mu­ni­ties in Jamaica, Tivoli Gardens, the cen­ter of labor par­ty pol­i­tics and the nerve cen­ter of Golding’s con­stituen­cy of west­ern Kingston. Coke is the adopt­ed son of Lester Lloyd Coke aka (Jim Brown) now deceased co-founder of the noto­ri­ous show­er posse , so named for show­er­ing their ene­mies with bul­lets, Jim Brown was burned alive in a Kingston prison cell as he await­ed extra­di­tion to the United States on crim­i­nal charges. He nev­er got to tes­ti­fy, and no one was ever held respon­si­ble for his death, despite the fact that he was in a prison and it must be fair­ly rou­tine to deter­mine who had access to his cell and when, some­one want­ed him dead before he could tes­ti­fy in America and they made sure of it.

Christopher coke in the cus­tody of US author­i­ties and his late father Lester Lloyd Coke in Jamaican police custody.

Many years ago as I served in the JCF I felt that if I worked hard and was able to take as many crim­i­nals off the streets as I could, I would be able to pos­i­tive­ly change my coun­try, I real­ly felt that it was up to the police to effect change in the cul­ture of per­va­sive crim­i­nal­i­ty that is at the core of the Jamaican psy­che. As a result I worked incred­i­bly hard to bring san­i­ty to the streets of Grant’s Pen, Red Hills road, Barbican and all places in between, some­times we passed on our days off, not because we weren’t tired but because we knew there was work to be done and we were the only ones that were going to get it done.

Officers Like Altamont (par­ra) Campbell , Now dis­missed Inspector Dadrick Henry, Cornwall Bigga Ford and a host of oth­er no-non­sense cops, all of whom were old­er men than me, were cops I looked up to. They made sure peo­ple could walk the streets of Saint Andrew North we were not going to have any dons in our sphere of influ­ence, when I exit­ed the Department in 1991 I nev­er had the ben­e­fit of hav­ing been issued a bul­let proof vest, we made pen­nies for our effort, but we made damn sure that crim­i­nals got their just deserts. Most times I did not take admin­is­tra­tive leave, an enti­tle­ment, many times cer­tain dead-wood cops would ask us why we did not take sick leave which the depart­ment allowed with pay, my posi­tion then, as it is now own­ing my own busi­ness and work­ing for myself is ” I am not sick”.

As the years went by I start­ed real­iz­ing that despite the work we were putting in it seemed crime was get­ting worse nation­al­ly, I per­son­al­ly start­ed tak­ing a seri­ous eval­u­a­to­ry look at what we were sup­posed to be accom­plish­ing. Having almost a decade of expe­ri­ence of the grit­ty nas­ti­ness the polit­i­cal choke hold pol­i­tics has on law enforce­ment in our coun­try I had by that time seen most of the polit­i­cal play­ers at their worst and had tak­en the informed deci­sion they were not on the side of Jamaica. I real­ized it was not con­fined to just the politi­cians we love to hate, but encom­passed all sec­tors of nation­al life. From Judges to tri­al lawyers, from Court staff, to Media, from Academia to the gar­risons it became abun­dant­ly clear that the goal we had as crime fight­ers in see­ing our coun­try adhere to the rule of law was by and large con­fined to us , a spat­ter­ing of poor peo­ple in the inner cities, rur­al folks, and some busi­ness people.

It became clear­er as time went by we were set up as fall guys for the fail­ings of the polit­i­cal and intel­lec­tu­al élite, this epiphany was not con­fined to me, the extreme­ly high attri­tion rate from the JCF is ade­quate tes­ti­mo­ny to that fact. Many argue that some who enter the JCF do so sole­ly for the pay­check this is undoubt­ed­ly true,but on the flip-side that pay check is not enough to keep most mem­bers inter­est­ed once they real­ize what they are up against.

It became more and more evi­dent when crim­i­nals who had com­mit­ted the most seri­ous crimes, and tak­en the most elab­o­rate mea­sures to avoid detec­tion and appre­hen­sion were rou­tine­ly returned to the streets by Judges who smiled and greet­ed their defense lawyer friends as they stood in court usu­al­ly with one foot, on the floor and one on the bench. As Investigating Officers we watched help­less­ly as dan­ger­ous mur­der­ers we had bust­ed our ass­es to remove from the streets laughed at us as they are rou­tine­ly grant­ed bail for the most pal­try sums of mon­ey. This cre­at­ed a don’t care atti­tude amongst cer­tain offi­cers, a crim­i­nal atti­tude in oth­ers and drove oth­ers from the depart­ment. When law enforce­ment feel that their work is being sab­o­taged by those who should be sup­port­ing the rule of law the end result is that the tail start wag­ging the dog, the crime sit­u­a­tion in Jamaica did not devel­op because of the police. Incompetent some may be ‚but they can do the job. The fact is there is no nation­al con­sen­sus by rel­e­vant stake hold­ers to coa­lesce around a pol­i­cy of intol­er­ance to crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. Inevitably what we end­ed up with is a coa­lesc­ing by some of the same stake­hold­ers, join­ing the ranks of the crim­i­nal world, those who do not active­ly engage and ben­e­fit finan­cial­ly, give aid and com­fort to them, say hel­lo to the, Media, Judiciary crim­i­nal rights, and legal fraternities.

Criminals in Jamaica are no dif­fer­ent than crim­i­nals any­where else in the world, They watch trends , they look for weak­ness of resolve, and they know who to look to for sup­port. In most coun­tries in the civ­i­lized world they stay below the radar as much as pos­si­ble, they under­stand that well think­ing cit­i­zens are watch­ing, will­ing to do what it takes to remove them and the can­cer­ous scourge they per­pet­u­ate on oth­ers who want a life free from crime. Not so in Jamaica , as is evi­dent in some of the images above the reverse is true, the worst mur­der­ers and scum of the earth are cel­e­brat­ed, revered ‚and idol­ized, make no mis­take about it ‚it may seem as if this is only true of the poor­er class on the streets, think again , this crim­i­nal cod­dling runs deep­er than meets the eyes.

That my friends is the rea­son crim­i­nals can brazen­ly threat­en the lives of law enforce­ment offi­cers with impuni­ty. At every lev­el the sup­port for crim­i­nals is stun­ning ‚one would imag­ine that poor peo­ple in depressed areas would be sus­cep­ti­ble to being manip­u­lat­ed by those who wield influ­ence, hand out token treats and of whom they are afraid.

What is stun­ning is the lev­el of sup­port that obtains for crim­i­nals from those who prac­tice law, those who sit in judge­ment, those who are sup­posed to report the news, and many oth­er sec­tors of nation­al life. This whole notion of “Jamaica no prob­lem” is a farce which needs to be exposed. There are some who feel it is not right to wash one’s dirty linen in pub­lic, to them I say sweep­ing the house and stor­ing the dirt under the rug still results in a dirty house. As the Coke Extradition have exposed, there is a deficit of trust as it relates to the polit­i­cal lead­er­ship with­in the coun­try. They can­not even be count­ed on to hon­or International agree­ments as it relates to crim­i­nals. Others can­not be trust­ed not to leak crit­i­cal nation­al secu­ri­ty infor­ma­tion to com­mon crim­i­nals, this runs the length and breadth of the polit­i­cal food-chain. What is most embar­rass­ing is that one par­ty act­ing in uni­son , vot­ed down a mea­sure that would allow the coun­try’s secu­ri­ty forces a lit­tle time and space to effec­tive­ly remove crim­i­nals from the equation.

That my friends is the most shock­ing, most un-Jamaican,most trea­so­nous of actions any indi­vid­ual or par­ty could take against Jamaica. Interestingly Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller and her cronies are run­ning around Jamaica with the same band of crim­i­nal sup­port­ing punks , again ask­ing for anoth­er chance to raid the bar­ren nation­al cof­fers,. Have they no shame ? No! Have the peo­ple no sense of what’s right for them ? No !

Peter Phillips National Security Minister under the PNP Administration of Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller did not trust Miller the Prime Minister, nor any of the jok­ers that made up her cab­i­net, with keep­ing state secrets, when he signed the Memorandums of under­stand­ing with the American Government. This spoke vol­umes of the lack of con­fi­dence Phillips had in any­one in the Government, much less the then oppo­si­tion not to reveal to dan­ger­ous trans-nation­al crim­i­nals that the JCF and oth­ers were lis­ten­ing in on their phone con­ver­sa­tions. Former Police Commissioner Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin revealed that he briefed Prime Minister Golding and National Security Minister Dwight Nelson at Vale Royal, Official res­i­dence of the Prime Minister on the Extradition request the United States made for Christopher Coke, he con­tend­ed it took him less than 10 min­utes to get back to his Office at 103 Old Hope Road, and by the time he got to his office it was clear to him that Coke had been warned that the Americans want­ed him. Remember the only two peo­ple he briefed was the Prime Minister, and National Security Minister of the country.

It can be under­stood when a down trod­den por­tion of any pop­u­la­tion cheer for the bad guy, the one that got away, the one who beat what they per­ceive to be an oppres­sive sys­tem. This is noth­ing new , nei­ther is it con­fined to Geography or Generation. It is anoth­er thing when those who should know bet­ter, those tasked with being keep­ers of the gate , turn around and betray the trust we place in them.

I am no longer con­fi­dent the change we seek can come from with­in. it is becom­ing appar­ent that irre­spec­tive of who gets placed in lead­er­ship, it will be tan­ta­mount to noth­ing more than a re-arrang­ing of the deck-chairs, as the Titanic sinks.

mike beck­les:

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