Wanted Murderer Could Have Surrendered Peacefully To Police, Or If Officers Had The Tools To Do Their Jobs

Speaking as some­one who made an inor­di­nate amount of arrests in my time, I ful­ly under­stand the dif­fi­cul­ties inher­ent in try­ing to secure a bel­liger­ent sus­pect who refus­es to sub­mit to being arrested.
Effecting the arrest of a bel­liger­ent sub­ject, regard­less of gen­der, can be extreme­ly chal­leng­ing for police offi­cers, which is why it is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant that police offi­cers be giv­en all the tools they require to do the job they are asked to do.
It is also cru­cial that an ade­quate num­ber of offi­cers are on hand to deal with issues at all times.
In Jamaica, where I served for a decade, the Jamaica Constabulary faces a deficit of equip­ment, trust, respect, and man­pow­er, among oth­er things.
Despite those deficits, Jamaican police offi­cers face some of the world’s most ruth­less and bar­bar­ic killers. They are held to some of the most exact­ing and demand­ing polic­ing stan­dards any­where in the world.
Truth be told, I can­not fore­see any log­i­cal rea­son that any­one would will­ing­ly do the job but for eco­nom­ic circumstances.
It is a high­ly vio­lent coun­try in which to oper­ate with a pop­u­la­tion that gives more respect to crim­i­nals and crim­i­nal­i­ty than to the rule of law or law-enforce­ment officers.
The lack of crit­i­cal non-lethal resources places the lives of both police offi­cers and the pub­lic at sig­nif­i­cant risk, and for no good rea­son. No one expects a doc­tor to per­form surgery with­out the req­ui­site tools. Yet, Jamaican cops are giv­en a frac­tion of the resources and tools they need to do their jobs and are held to the high­est stan­dard of oper­a­tions in both the courts of law and pop­u­lar opinion.
Consequently, police offi­cers are left to make life-and-death deci­sions that, under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, would not have risen to that lev­el of lethality.
There is absolute­ly no rea­son that the Jamaican Government should send offi­cers into the vio­lent streets of Jamaica with­out tasers, body-worn cam­eras, and oth­er accou­ter­ments of the trade in this day and age.
This writer, a for­mer police offi­cer who left the force because it was led by idiots and fools and polit­i­cal lead­ers who are crim­i­nals, will under no cir­cum­stances lis­ten to the non­sense that there is no money.
The gov­ern­ment finds mon­ey to do the things it deems impor­tant to the fidu­cia­ry inter­est of the rul­ing class.
The shoot­ing death yes­ter­day of a want­ed sub­ject by the police could have been avoid­ed if the offi­cers had enough man­pow­er, had tasers, and, more impor­tant­ly, had the arrestee sub­mit­ted to being arrested.
Since alleged mur­der­ers can be count­ed on not to sub­mit to being arrest­ed, the Government must bear respon­si­bil­i­ty for not pro­vid­ing the most basic non-lethal tools to the offi­cers to car­ry out their duties effectively.

The police do their best to arrest these young killers, and as soon as they are arrest­ed, the punk-ass judges return them to the streets. Here we see Twaine Morrison parad­ing in the streets with a gun in hand as if it is the most nat­ur­al thing to do.
This can­not con­tin­ue; we need leg­is­la­tion that keeps vio­lent arrestees locked up until they receive a speedy trial.
Worse yet, we need stiffer penal­ties for vio­lent crime, and most impor­tant­ly, we need manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences for vio­lent offenders.
We need to remove from the remit of the Island’s crim­i­nal lov­ing judges the abil­i­ty to return these dan­ger­ous killers to the streets.

CASE IN POINT

SEE THE ACTUAL VIDEO OF THE EVENT; WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGERY.
Do not open and then com­plain about the graph­ic nature of the video. (Adapted)

Jamaica, like so many oth­er nations, is a coun­try oper­at­ing like a ship with­out a rud­der floun­der­ing in the open ocean. It is lit­er­al­ly look­ing for the next ice­berg on which to crash.
Even as we speak, the two polit­i­cal par­ties are locked in a death strug­gle for pow­er in a race to the bot­tom. What pass­es for lead­er­ship are a bunch of mis­fits who spit on the fin­ger and hold it up to the wind to see what deci­sions to make.
If lead­ers were intend­ed to oper­ate that way, the peo­ple would not elect lead­ers to.……lead.
Real lead­ers lead from in front, unbe­hold­en to spe­cial inter­est or wor­ry about polit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions. Tough deci­sions that will result in real and mean­ing­ful change are not always palat­able at the start, but results are what matter.
Expecting that the required deci­sions will come from the present bunch of cow­ards and thieves that pass for lead­ers in Jamaica is a wast­ed expectation.

Our coun­try is doomed to become anoth­er Haiti. We are well on the way.
One of the most impor­tant take­aways from this inci­dent which most observers and com­men­ta­tors miss is the lit­tle issue of bail.
According to the Police report­ing, this young mis­cre­ant should be locked away in jail, await­ing tri­al for the three rob­beries he was charged with. It goes with­out say­ing that if he were charged with three armed rob­beries, he would have com­mit­ted many more. Nevertheless, a judge saw fit to return him to the streets, where he lat­er killed some­one and threat­ened others.
This was what brought the police to the dis­trict to seek him out.
Judges act as social work­ers exact­ing their world­view on soci­ety rather than doing their jobs.

This sto­ry con­tin­ues to be updat­ed from its orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion as more mate­r­i­al of evi­den­tiary val­ue becomes avail­able.….
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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.