WHAT CAUSED THE DEATH OF SSP DATHAN (DUFFY) HENRY ?

On the trag­ic event of the pass­ing of my friend Senior Superintendent (SSP) Dathan (Duffy) Henry, I was shocked and sad­dened beyond words.

Duffy was more than what is now ref­ered to as a (senior cop). Dathan Duffy Henry and I served togeth­er at the Constant Spring CIB when we were very young men. It is a remark­able thing which sep­a­rates police offi­cers in Jamaica from oth­er young men. One could join the police depart­ment at the ten­der age of 18 years. most of us joined fresh out of high school. Duffy was one of those young fresh-faced kid. He was not only young , he was smart and will­ing, he was intel­li­gent, and inno­v­a­tive, I close my eyes and I am right back in that upstairs office hear­ing Duffy par­tic­i­pate in those strat­e­gy ses­sions we had, dis­cussing how we would remove crim­i­nals from the streets.

The pass­ing of my friend, shock­ing, and painful as it has been, has now been exac­er­bat­ed by news that the cause of death has been ruled incon­clu­sive. This has sparked the rumor mill churn­ing, with the front-line argu­ment being that he was poisoned.

It seem to me that even if he was poi­soned, a prop­er autop­sy would not only have revealed that truth, it would also be able to in most cas­es, nail down with con­clu­sive speci­fici­ty, the tox­in which was used, if there is any truth to that rumor.

IS SSP HENRY’S DEATH AN INDICTMENT ON THE MEDICAL SYSTEM?

What I per­son­al­ly found shock­ing is the fact that Dathan laid dying in the Kingston Public Hospital and no one fig­ured that they could not save his life. Hospitals and med­ical staff are some­times unable to pre­vent some­one from dying. However as some­one who has been injured and arrived at a pro­fes­sion­al med­ical facil­i­ty clin­i­cal­ly dead, I am inclined to believe in the mir­a­cle of mod­ern med­i­cine, not only to diag­nose prob­lems but to effect recov­ery of even the most grave­ly ill persons.

It seem incom­pre­hen­si­ble to me a lay per­son, that irre­spec­tive of what ailed Duffy, that he could not have been bet­ter diag­nosed and effec­tive­ly treat­ed. If he could not be treat­ed in the coun­try his fam­i­ly and orga­ni­za­tion could have sought med­ical help in anoth­er jurisdiction.

WOEFUL INADEQUACY:

One night in 1987 I was shot on Blackwood Terrace off Red Hills road as I went to inves­ti­gate threats against a res­i­dent of that com­mu­ni­ty, that res­i­dent was also shot in the stom­ach and back. I was able to neu­tral­ize that threat that night and remove a 357 mag­num from the streets.

Bleeding from a wound to my hip, my shoes filled with blood, I took the gen­tle­man to the Kingston Public Hospital for treat­ment. Still bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly I helped to lift him and took him into what obtained for the emer­gency room, the gen­tle­man was scream­ing in pain on the stretch­er as we wield­ed him in. There was a man Sitting behind the counter with his feet up read­ing the Gleaner, he did not both­er to glance in our direc­tion despite the ago­nized groans com­ing from the man on the stretcher.

No one ran out to help us, no one both­ered to pay any atten­tion to us, I iden­ti­fied myself and asked for help, no one moved , I again asked for help and no one moved to help us , and the man kept read­ing his paper. I then lost it and went bal­lis­tic, upon which the Gleaner read­ing moron jumped up and iden­ti­fied him­self as the on-duty doc­tor. I won’t both­er to tell you what I said to him before I left for the University Hospital to be treated.

I obvi­ous­ly was not sur­prised yes­ter­day when my blog-post in that (dish-rag) the Gleaner was not post­ed. That incom­pe­tent poor excuse of a doc­tor was in fact read­ing a copy of the Gleaner, go figure.

SEEN FIRST HAND:

As a young detec­tive one of the require­ments of the job was to be present at autop­sies in cas­es where I was active­ly engaged in an inves­ti­ga­tion. I would also attend when asked to stand in, which also required me to poten­tial­ly tes­ti­fy in any court pro­ceed­ing that may poten­tial­ly emanate from that enquiry. In the way mod­ern autop­sies are con­duct­ed today with appro­pri­ate pro­fes­sion­als, tech­nolo­gies, care, and pur­pose, backed up with sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis of the most minute detail , those Jamaican exam­i­na­tions were as far as the East is from the West.

What obtained then as I am told obtains now, is as I saw it. A porter cuts open the corpse, the doc­tor stays two yards away and jots a few things on a note-pad, seem­ing­ly put-off at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of touch­ing it. That’s the way an autop­sy is done in Jamaica. The truth is these grave dis­ser­vice are passed off as pro­fes­sion­al behav­ior because the peo­ple do not demand better.

INEPT POLICE:

The Jamaica Constabulary Force for its part, is now ask­ing peo­ple to come for­ward if they have any infor­ma­tion regard­ing what seem to be a now active crim­i­nal investigation. 

The INEPT Police Department has now con­firmed that there is an active inves­ti­ga­tion going on by its Major Investigations Task-Force (MIT). They are also ask­ing peo­ple to come for­ward and tell what they know if any­thing at (92−922−−5344) or (92−948−9181) The police have also stat­ed that they are await­ing the tox­i­col­o­gy report to come back.

As the police await the tox­i­col­o­gy report, what are they doing in the mean­time? If the Hospital did not have the capac­i­ty to save the life of my friend while he laid there for days dying, can­not deter­mine what caused his death, what makes them think that this fias­co of a sys­tem will have the capac­i­ty to deter­mine cause of death, through tox­i­col­o­gy tests done by the same inept system?

(1) What about retrac­ing the steps SSP Henry took pri­or to him falling ill?

(2) How about talk­ing to every­one from fam­i­ly mem­bers to every per­son with whom he may have met over the pre­vi­ous 48 hours pri­or to him hav­ing fall­en ill?

(3) How about talk­ing to all of his col­leagues with whom he may have met over the same period?

(4) How about lit­er­al­ly walk­ing in Dathan’s shoes back­wards, in an attempt to see with whom he may have had a drink, shared a lunch,had a casu­al cock­tail, if any?

(4) Surely in this day and age even in Jamaica there are secu­ri­ty sys­tems that may tell more than the inept police are will­ing to acknowledge.

(5) How about look­ing at insur­ance to see who the ben­e­fi­cia­ries are?

(6) How about look­ing at peo­ple with­in the Department with whom he may have had a disagreement?

(7) How about look­ing at crim­i­nals who may have had it out for Henry because of his vig­i­lance in dis­rupt­ing their activ­i­ties, who poten­tial­ly may have plant­ed peo­ple into his inner cir­cle, to include police officers?

(8) How about look­ing to see if any­one may have threat­ened his life, at any stage, pri­or to his death?

(9) How about look­ing at Hospital staff to see who may have been admin­is­ter­ing treat­ment to him in an effort to see if they were com­pro­mised? His ini­tial hos­pi­tal­iza­tion may not have been life threat­en­ing, he how­ev­er could have been done in right there in the hospital.

There are a lot real detec­tives could be doing in the inter­im as they await tox­i­col­o­gy results. The longer an inves­ti­ga­tion drags, the less like­ly it is that a pos­i­tive con­clu­sion will be reached. Twiddling thumbs is not an option . If the Jamaican Police can­not inves­ti­gate the death of one of its bright­est most cel­e­brat­ed stars, how can it expect to engen­der trust and con­fi­dence in the Jamaican people?