Well Done (badda) Ford…

How Ironic ?
I received the News my good friend SSP Cornwall (Badda) Ford was retir­ing the same way most every­one else did, through the Jamaican media.
Those who know him from the many and var­ied sto­ries told and retold about his for­ays and exploits in the Police Department his Nickname (Bigga Ford) speaks to his phys­i­cal stature.
To the rest of us who real­ly know him the term (Badda Ford) is more appro­pri­ate, even as it does­n’t come close to telling the mag­ni­tude of his ser­vice to country.

Those who nev­er donned a uni­form in ser­vice to some­thing big­ger than them­selves ben­e­fit from the sac­ri­fices of those who do and that’s okay.
No one forces a police offi­cer or a mem­ber of the mil­i­tary to serve but they do anyway.
No not every­one will ful­ly appre­ci­ate the immense char­ac­ter which goes into some­one run­ning toward fly­ing fly­ing bul­lets and bark­ing guns so that oth­ers can be safe.

I wish I had a dol­lar for every instance I heard the argu­ment that “no one forced them and they get paid”. Nowadays I sim­ply smile either you get it or you don’t

SSP Ford’s immi­nent depar­ture from the JCF will book-end a chap­ter of real fear­less crime fight­ers, some Famous and oth­ers unsung. Ironically the JCF is now an Institution top heavy with gazetted offi­cers most­ly with degrees who could’t find their way out of a brown paper bag.
Ford came from a long line of crime fight­ers some of whom I was priv­i­leged to know and a few I had the dis­tinct plea­sure of work­ing with.
That list includes but is in no way con­fined to the well known.
Joe Williams. Keith (Trinity) Gardener. O C Hare. Anthony Hewitt. Altamoth (Parra) Campbell. Cornwall (Badda) Ford. Dadrick Henry. Isiah Laing. Mikey Scott and others.
As one for­mer street sol­dier speak­ing to the real street sol­diers like Spungy, O’connor, and the count­less heroes who kept Jamaica from boil­ing over into a failed state I lift my cap to you. Many of you have gone on , many still remain with us , you know your­selves and you know your con­tri­bu­tion to our country.
Yo did what you did with­out fan­fare , you did it for pre­cious lit­tle reward, but you did it for love of country.
I salute you.

Those who sit atop the con­stab­u­lary hier­ar­chy climbed on your shoul­ders , many occu­py­ing posi­tions unearned Ford spoke to this in his com­ments to the media.
Quote :  “The police force has made me and I have made my con­tri­bu­tion. I have made my mark. The police force as an insti­tu­tion is not a bad thing. It’s just that you have some police in it who are wicked and bad-mind­ed. You have peo­ple of all dif­fer­ent val­ues and standards,” 
It is report­ed that Ford will be leav­ing the depart­ment in ear­ly January 2016 uti­liz­ing the ear­ly retire­ment option avail­able to him.
No one knows more about the cor­rup­tion of some who serve and some who still serve of which Ford speak.
As a young Constable work­ing at the CIB Office at Constant Spring police pre­scient I was on Vacation leave and dri­ving a rent­ed car my kid broth­er loaned me to pick up a female friend from the Norman Manley International airport.

I was dri­ving East along Spanish Town Road when a car head­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion cut across my path and slammed into me.
The car had no head­lights, I nev­er knew what hit me.
I suf­fered cuts to my head and fore­head and oth­er injuries , the car I was dri­ving a Toyota star­let was lit­er­al­ly totaled.
Driving the unmarked car was a cer­tain police Corporal with whom I had served at the Mobile Reserve on the Ranger Squad .
He was on assign­ment to a plain­clothes squad based at police Area 4 which was on South Camp Road. With him were his team members.

Seeing it was him I asked him to radio the Denham Town Police which was the near­est sta­tion to the crash , I was bleed­ing , mem­bers of his team were also shak­en up but noth­ing seri­ous. An Inspector of police arrived and dealt with the acci­dent as it should be at the time when police ser­vice vehi­cles are involved.
The cer­tain cor­po­ral with whom I pre­vi­ous­ly had cor­dial rela­tion­ship did not want to lose his plum assign­ment at Area 4 so he con­coct­ed a scheme to cov­er his ass.

Fortunately Badda Ford was there when he told the Assistant Commissioner that I was escort­ing gun­men from Tivoli Gardens and crashed into him destroy­ing the car.
♦He nev­er quite explained how it was pos­si­ble for me to be escort­ing gun­men from Tivoli Gardens while head­ing in the direc­tion of Tivoli Gardens.
♦ H e nev­er both­ered explain­ing the absence of the peo­ple I was sup­pos­ed­ly escorting>
♦ He nev­er both­ered think­ing that the acci­dent was prop­er­ly inves­ti­gat­ed by an Inspector who could be called on for a detailed report of the crash.
♦ He did­n’t care that I knew absolute­ly no one from Tivoli Gardens.
♦ He did­n’t care that I was a hon­est hard work­ing police offi­cer who stood for fideli­ty and what’s right.
♦ The idi­ot­ic big bel­ly Assistant Commissioner for all intents and pur­pos­es would have gob­bled up the con­coct­ed sto­ry as gospel had Ford not jumped in and blast­ed him as a liar and a fraud.
Bigga Ford told him point­ed­ly he would tell me what he was telling the Assistant Commissioner so he should know when I con­front him he told me.
I left the force a few years lat­er , the then cor­po­ral went on to become a Superintendent.
Is there much won­der the Department is in the shape it’s in?
The same is true for count­less offi­cers of hon­esty and integri­ty who walked away leav­ing far too many with ques­tion­able characters .

I did not con­front that cor­po­ral imme­di­ate­ly, I wait­ed until I was in con­trol then I told him that despite the fact I had not said any­thing I knew what he did all along and yes I told him Supa Ford told me of his wicked con­coct­ed story.
He knew what time it was , I’m sure he pissed his pants, but for the God in me I would have.….…
Oh well.
The era of the super cops is now offi­cial­ly over.
One of my chief obser­va­tion about my coun­try­men is their pre­ten­tious nature. We pre­tend we are what we are not.
Jamaica is far and away not close to hav­ing a jus­tice sys­tem which works. Adopting a mod­el which even devel­oped coun­tries eschew is suicidal.
Of course in Jamaica every­one knows exact­ly how to do every­one’s job except their own.

So a pedi­atric Doctor became the tem­plate for set­ting polic­ing pro­to­cols, dozens of cops killed since , thou­sands of inno­cent civil­ians also.
Rather than fix the prob­lem they dou­bled down cre­at­ing anoth­er lay­er of antag­o­nism against law enforce­ment, plac­ing at it’s head an ego-mani­a­cal nar­cis­sist , more cops and more inno­cent civil­ians can pre­pare to die.
Ride off into the sun­set Badda Ford you served your coun­try well, you weren’t per­fect , none of us are but here’s hop­ing what­ev­er else you do look after el número uno , my friend , and do smell the flow­ers while you still can .
Peace my broth­er enjoy the next phase of your life.