If You Are A Uniformed Jamaican Cop Who Shoots A Suspect Who Attack You With A Machete You Will Be Convicted Of A Crime.….

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF A JAMAICA GLEANER’S STORY OF THE SHOOTING OF A HANOVER TAXI OPERATOR WHO ATTACKED A UNIFORMED POLICE OFFICER WHO SIGNALED HIM TO STOP IN 2014.

A taxi oper­a­tor who alleged­ly attacked a traf­fic police­man, knock­ing him to the ground and rain­ing blows on him, was shot and injured by the law­man in Hopewell, Hanover, yes­ter­day morn­ing. In the inci­dent, which was video­taped on a cel­lu­lar phone by a bystander, five shots were fired by the uni­formed police­man, result­ing in the injur­ing of taxi oper­a­tor St Obrian Downey, who is of a Montpelier address, also in Hanover. According to an eye­wit­ness account, Downey was dri­ving his taxi through the town when he was sig­nalled to stop by the law­man. The two report­ed­ly got into a heat­ed argu­ment and Downey stepped out of his car and accost­ed the police­man, who was in uni­form. “I just see dem grab up and start wres­tle and then the two of them fell to the ground,” the eye­wit­ness said. In the video of the inci­dent, which was post­ed on Facebook, both men were seen on the ground flail­ing away at each oth­er. Downey, who appeared to be the aggres­sor, was seem­ing­ly get­ting the bet­ter of the law­man, lash­ing out with punch­es and kicks. “… But the police­man can’t man­age him,” one of the onlook­ers was over­heard say­ing on the video.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​a​r​-​o​n​-​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​f​o​r​-​d​o​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​j​o​bs/

Five shots fired

After the view of the cel­lu­lar phone was blocked momen­tar­i­ly by a pass­ing vehi­cle, the record­ing resumed with the police­man, who now had his gun in hand, still tus­sling with Downey. Suddenly one shot was heard, fol­lowed by four oth­ers, as the law­man broke free and Downey buck­led over in appar­ent pain. The law­man sub­se­quent­ly picked up what looked like a baton on the ground, beside the injured Downey. It was not clear who moved Downey from the scene, but he sub­se­quent­ly end­ed up at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, suf­fer­ing from gun­shot wounds to his leg and thigh. Yesterday, the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) said it had launched a probe into the shoot­ing, while the police said they would inves­ti­gate the attack on their colleague.(jamaicagleaner)

Jamaica’s Crime Not Rooted In The Ghettos.…

That Police offi­cer Constable Wayne Hamil was found guilty and fined $1 mil­lion or three years in prison. On July 1, con­sta­ble Hamil was con­vict­ed in the Trelawny Circuit Court for wound­ing with intent.
According to oth­er report­ing the taxi oper­a­tor was armed with a machete. Here is that reporting .…..
St Obrian Downey was dri­ving his taxi approach­ing a no-stand­ing area, and warned to dri­ve off, before park­ing his taxi ille­gal­ly. Instead of issu­ing a tick­et, the offi­cer motioned the taxi dri­ver to dri­ve off. The two report­ed­ly got into a heat­ed argu­ment before Downey stepped out of his taxi with a machete and assault­ed the uni­formed police­man. It is at this point the two have fall­en to ground, wrestling for con­trol of the machete, when the offi­cer drew his gun and fired at close range, strik­ing the attack­er in the legs, thighs and but­tocks. http://​www​.live​leak​.com/​v​i​e​w​?​i​=​9​e​d​_​1​3​9​5​7​7​1​9​5​4​&​c​o​m​m​e​n​t​s=1

I write about crime in Jamaica not because I want to make friends , frankly I could­n’t care less about my crit­ics. I write to sup­port police offi­cers on the Island who uphold their oath to serve and pro­tect. I lend my unmit­i­gat­ed sup­port to those offi­cers who avoid the lure of filthy mon­ey derived from mur­der­ing crim­i­nals or those who would prey on oth­ers for finan­cial gain.
For the offi­cers who risk life and limb to pro­vide san­i­ty and a mod­icum of nor­mal­cy in an oth­er­wise Serengeti of car­nage and may­hem I stand with you.
In the time it took me to write this blog sev­er­al per­sons would have been sex­u­al­ly or oth­er­wise assault­ed and one per­son would have lost his/​her life to vio­lent thugs .
As a for­mer police offi­cer trained in Jamaica I was told that a police offi­cer in uni­form or duly iden­ti­fied as a police offi­cer and act­ing law­ful­ly has a right to use as much force as is nec­es­sary in defense of his/​her life or that of anoth­er.

That force I was taught, can­not be before or after force was used against the offi­cer, it must be at the time the force was direct­ed at said offi­cer. What that means is that a police offi­cer is not allowed to use force against a sus­pect before that sus­pect indi­cates he intends to harm the offi­cer or anoth­er. Neither can the offi­cer use lethal force after an assault by a sub­ject , as along as that sub­ject sur­ren­ders. On the oth­er hand no police offi­cer has any oblig­a­tion to wait to be assault­ed , wound­ed , or killed before using the nec­es­sary force required to put down an assault on his/​her per­son or on the per­son of anoth­er. It is all up to an assailant to decide to sur­ren­der to police com­mands and not attack a police offi­cer. That is a uni­ver­sal pro­to­col , except on the Island of Jamaica.

I will con­tin­ue to write for peo­ple with­in the dias­po­ra and those look­ing to Jamaica as a place to set­tle or do busi­ness . I refuse to pre­tend that this is a place where the rule of law is prac­ticed or encour­aged. What Jamaica has is a façade of democ­ra­cy. It is a cul­ture which cul­ti­vates an adver­sar­i­al rela­tion­ship with the rule of law.
Ultimately Jamaica is a tin-pan crim­i­nal sys­tem run by a few peo­ple who are crim­i­nals or have con­nec­tions with criminals.
This tran­scend polit­i­cal fin­ger point­ing, it is about a sys­tem rather than about the two polit­i­cal par­ty. It is an entrenched sys­tem which is root­ed in crime and the cel­e­bra­tion of criminality.
It is a sys­tem in which those who occu­py the crim­i­nal court bench has no fideli­ty or respect for the laws except when sit­u­a­tions fit into their nar­row world-view.
Jamaica is a coun­try in which the rule of law is a fig­ment of good peo­ple’s imag­i­na­tion and an aber­ra­tion to the masses.
There is no per­fect sys­tem any­where as it relates to polic­ing. The art of polic­ing is a con­tin­ued process of tri­al and error. We must pros­e­cute rogue police offi­cers when they bla­tant­ly abro­gate the laws they are sworn to uphold. As we do that how­ev­er ‚we must endeav­or to send a strong mes­sage to those who would attack police offi­cers that we stand behind our police officer.
This is true in the United States of America and it is true on the Island of Jamaica.

What is absolute­ly sur­re­al is, under what cir­cum­stance could a sus­pect who attack a uni­formed police office in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of his duties be giv­en the ben­e­fit of the doubt?
This is a dement­ed and deranged sys­tem of lit­tle men and women who sit atop a shit-pile total­ly obliv­i­ous of the stench as long as they get to sit atop the pile.
This has been the men­tal­i­ty of Jamaicans since the colo­nial pow­ers returned to England or died out. The bunch of self appoint­ed elites have since grabbed the reins of pow­er and cre­at­ed for them­selves a fief­dom of corruption.
This is the real Jamaica, not the total bull-shit you hear about in the tired old com­mer­cials about our country.
This is a coun­try in which many at every lev­el wants crime to con­tin­ue. Policing in Jamaica is an effort in futility.
There are sim­ply too many entrenched inter­est which ben­e­fits from crime.