Testifying before the Parliament Internal and External Affairs Committee Deputy Indecom Commissioner Hamish Campbell, In response to the PNP’s Lisa Hanna’s question, why most officers involved in fatal shootings were not charged, responded, “.A great majority of the [police] shootings, to use an American term, are ‘lawful but awful.’
Not sure where Hamish Campbell saw that characterization, but first, I would like to address Lisa Hanna’s question of why most cops are not charged when they are engaged in police-related shootings.
Was her question a real question? Did she ask the question for the edification of the public? It is difficult to tell when one understands the ignorance and pomposity of these so-called legislators, but I will let this one slide.
Before I go any further, I would like to highlight what the Bucky massa said.
The vast majority of officers are not charged because the shootings are legitimate.
Before we move forward, however, let us dissect this issue to gain some clarity. As a writer who opines on the issue of police violence daily, it is important to appreciate the dynamic differences between Jamaican policing and what passes for policing across the United States.
https://mikebeckles.com/351727 – 2/
https://mikebeckles.com/defund-the-police-sound-principle/
Literally every issue in the United States is colored by race, policing chief among those issues. Jamaican policing is free from racial baggage. Some would argue that there is classism in Jamaican policing. However, the lack of support Jamaican cops receive from the political leadership makes it less likely that officers would engage in classism in performing their duties in Jamaica. In the United States, the police are backed up by the courts, the legislatures, and the executive, not to mention the vast majority of the white population.
Jamaican police violence must also be contextualized, ie that the nation has a high rate of violence, is a world leader in homicides and is a country with an inordinate amount of illegal weapons in the hands of violent criminals.
It is impossible to rule out that there are strains of extrajudicial killings due to the judiciary’s refusal to follow the laws related to violent criminals.
Hamish Campbell then went on: “So the use of force has been necessary, and the individual officer is concerned for his own life or safety of himself or another.” “But what is happening for a lot of these cases, the tactics and approach could be different in some of the circumstances because, once a police officer draws the gun, there is almost an inevitability about what will happen; he will certainly use it and resulting in death and injury.”
Most of the research and writings I have done have centered on American police, one of the observations I have made is that the defund the police call is legitimate because cops should not be handling mental health calls. Simply put, we ask police officers to do too much. In the United States, cops are asked to do far less than in Jamaica, yet they are given far more to get the job done. Still, across the United States, police officers resort to lethal violence in many situations where a different approach would have sufficed with less traumatic results.
And so, I have argued that a police officer should not strive to be only lawful but should also be morally justified in their use of force, particularly in utilizing lethal force.
An officer should not use lethal force because the law will exonerate him; his conscience should also exonerate him.
There are non-lethal tools that will reduce police shootings, Tasers and even nets to corral a person experiencing a mental episode. Under no circumstances should a person experiencing a mental episode become a victim of police bullets.
In the same breath, it is critically important to reconcile in Jamaica that the police do not have enough tools to avoid using lethal force in such circumstances as with individuals experiencing mental episodes or who are considered mad.
Many police officers have been seriously injured and killed trying to avoid using lethal force on violent street people, some of whom had already seriously wounded civilians.
Politicians living in little bubbles in Jamaica who would ask silly questions would be better-served reading instead of pontificating on subjects they do not know about.
INDECOM has come a long way since the days of demagoguery under Terrence Williams; thank God he crawled under a rock, hopefully never to be heard from again.
Police do need oversight. I am happy to see that the agency is evolving by publishing facts and making recommendations on how it feels the public may be better served. In the same breath, those who make policy must recognize that there is a big difference between those who sit and analyze after the fact and those who actually face the dangers.
We know that common sense and the ability to critical-think are in short supply in many who pass for legislators.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.