Tragic Death Of Young Officer Highlights Cocoon Of Jamaican Make Believe…

The shoot­ing death of 22-year-old Constable Brian Martin on Ricketts Avenue in the Maxfield Park com­mu­ni­ty of St Andrew though regret­table, should not be shock­ing to anyone.
According to news reports, the young police­man who was sta­tioned at the Half Way Tree Police Station was stand­ing at a Wake with a group of oth­er men in the area known as Frog city when they were attacked by gun­men who opened fire, hit­ting the offi­cer and four oth­ers. The offi­cer died of his wounds at the hospital.
Before I am attacked for blam­ing the offi­cer for his own demise, I should make clear I am doing no such thing.
As a young con­sta­ble dur­ing the 80s, those were areas I would vis­it day and night as the most beau­ti­ful girls lived in the ghet­tos. One par­tic­u­lar girl I was dat­ing was always pet­ri­fied that harm would come to me when­ev­er I vis­it­ed her.
Back then, there were M16s and oth­er weapons in the hands of crim­i­nals, just not to the extent that they are now. Even though crime was at lev­els we were uncom­fort­able with; it was a far cry from what they are today.

Sometimes my line of defense was a .38 revolver; at oth­er times, it was brava­do and an irra­tional sense of indestructibility.
Later on, I grad­u­at­ed to a 9mm semi-auto­mat­ic with extend­ed clips.
The improved weapon­ry did not exact­ly increase my mis­guid­ed sense of inde­struc­tibil­i­ty; it was improved knowl­edge of the job, improved local knowl­edge, and, to some extent, the aura and mys­tique we built around our­selves as front-line cops.
It is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to explain to some­one who has nev­er been a police offi­cer in Jamaica what exact­ly that aura and mys­tique entails, suf­fic­ing to say that it worked the exact oppo­site of Moths and bright lights.
Those days are long gone; dur­ing the 80s, Jamaica’s mur­der rate fluc­tu­at­ed between 500 & 600 homi­cides annu­al­ly. Back then, we were tear­ing our hair out at those num­bers. Today the coun­try is awash in guns and an end­less sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion, so there is that. The nation’s lead­ers have tak­en no steps to pass the required laws to put crim­i­nals where they belong. Contrarily, they have gone out of their way to ham­string the abil­i­ty of the police to do their jobs effectively.
I would not be so pre­sump­tu­ous as to tell any­one where they should and should­n’t go. And yes, .….….I am quite aware that there is crime every­where. I am also mind­ful that he could have been killed uptown.
It is report­ed that the young offi­cer is from the area and may have felt safe. Unfortunately, it is sit­u­a­tions like these which breeds a false sense of security.

I have heard all of the excus­es before, and at this point, I am way past offer­ing safe­ty tips to Jamaicans, who always seem to have the answers for every­thing, even when they do not have a clue what they are talk­ing about.
Speaking to police offi­cers, I ven­ture this mod­icum of advice. You must under­stand your sur­round­ings. You must play the odds.
Officers, if there is a like­li­hood that you may be ambushed in a cer­tain com­mu­ni­ty, reduce those odds by not going to those areas.
Worse yet, police offi­cers are eas­i­ly rec­og­nized. Being sta­tioned at Half Way Tree so close to that volatile com­mu­ni­ty means the offi­cer may have been rec­og­nized by some­one he may not have known but who knew him.
At some point, police offi­cers must act in accor­dance with the train­ing they receive and make bet­ter deci­sions as to where they hang out, even when they are from cer­tain areas. They are still trained in local knowl­edge, right?
I am well aware that we live in a cocoon of make-believe. I have been told more times than I care to men­tion the only peo­ple who are get­ting gunned down are peo­ple who inna sit­ting wid ada peo­ple.
I had no idea that the lives of Jamaicans [regard­less of who they are], were disposable.
It is so sad to me when trained police offi­cers become vic­tims of this sys­tem of make-believe; offi­cers ought to know better.
We have lost far too many offi­cers, young and old, who clear­ly for­got that, despite the hype and lies, far too many Jamaican com­mu­ni­ties are extreme­ly dan­ger­ous to every­one and worse for officers.
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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.