When Did The JCF Know That Kevin Smith Was Convicted For Sexual Assault On A Male Victim?

Among the mael­strom of ques­tions ema­nat­ing from the Kevin Smith affair, begin­ning with the ser­mons at his Saint James Church to the rit­u­al killings, through to his death, are a series of ques­tions for the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
The con­tin­ued dizzy­ing incom­pe­tence of the Force’s senior man­agers and the JCF over­all is shock­ing to even the most casu­al observer.
I cre­at­ed a mot­to for myself many years ago, which is ‘if you are no good at the thing you do best, what good are you”? I have used that mot­to to guide my per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life.
Applying that met­ric to the Jamaica Constabulary Force has con­tin­u­al­ly exposed to me the agen­cy’s inep­ti­tude, even as some with­in and out­side con­tin­ue to talk about the force’s transformation.
I con­tin­ue to con­tend that trans­for­ma­tion with­out results is a net loss for the coun­try; if the JCF con­tin­ue to ask the tax­pay­ers to foot the bill for new­er equip­ment, accou­ter­ments, and salaries yet the pay­ing pub­lic receives lit­tle to no ben­e­fit to jus­ti­fy the cost, the hype is just Antony Anderson and his sup­port­ers pat­ting them­selves on the back.

Over the years, I have argued that the JCF was extreme­ly far from what it could have been, even with the polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence, being starved of resources by the two polit­i­cal gangs that run our coun­try and oth­er mal­adies. I believed in my heart that, at the bare min­i­mum, the JCF could have oper­at­ed expo­nen­tial­ly more effi­cient­ly and sub­se­quent­ly more productively.
As a young con­sta­ble who joined in 82, it was clear to me very ear­ly that despite my love for the chal­lenges of the job, the cor­rup­tion, inep­ti­tude, gross-incom­pe­tence, nepo­tism, crony­ism, and utter stu­pid­i­ty of the senior corps of the force, I could not make the force a career.
By 1991 I was gone.
Bullies with rank, many of whom could bare­ly read prop­er­ly dom­i­nat­ed and con­trolled, with­out vision or imagination.
But for the dar­ing and ded­i­ca­tion of the younger offi­cers, it is hard to imag­ine what would have hap­pened to the Jamaican people.
The mass exo­dus of young tal­ent from the force is a tes­ta­ment to the cor­ro­sive cor­rup­tion and incom­pe­tence of the force’s senior leadership.

A pri­vate com­pa­ny oper­at­ing the way the JCF oper­ates would have fold­ed decades ago. Why the Jamaican peo­ple con­tin­ue to accept this lev­el of incom­pe­tence from this agency is any­body’s guess?
The argu­ment for the uptown crowd has always been that the police force is a place where fail­ures in school go to get jobs. In fair­ness, some of that was true; now, mem­bers of the force have more degrees than ther­mome­ters, but the data points to a force that is get­ting worse each day, regard­less of the hype from clue­less cheerleaders..
The police com­mis­sion­er, Antony Anderson, anoth­er for­mer head of the mil­i­tary, would have been long gone had he come from the rank and file. Still, polit­i­cal con­nec­tions and friends in upper Saint Andrew and Jamaica House are impor­tant in nav­i­gat­ing the Jamaican sys­tem’s minefield.
Please don’t talk to me about trans­for­ma­tion when the things we see hap­pen­ing dai­ly are not indica­tive of change, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, much less transformation.
To those on the inside and those who left but still sup­port the sta­tus quo, I do under­stand that when you are in the stag­nant pud­dle, you may miss the stench.
For the oth­ers who are now retired who believe that the JCF was the best thing ever, I empathize with you too; if you had noth­ing else to com­pare it with, I under­stand how you could feel the way you do.

WHEN DID THE JCF KNOW THAT KEVIN SMITH WAS CONVICTED FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT ON A MALE VICTIM?
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​k​e​v​i​n​-​s​m​i​t​h​-​w​a​s​-​c​o​n​v​i​c​t​e​d​-​o​f​-​s​e​x​u​a​l​-​a​s​s​a​u​l​t​-​o​n​-​a​-​m​a​l​e​-​v​i​c​t​i​m​-​d​p​p​-​c​o​n​f​i​r​ms/

The Director Of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewelyn told the media Tuesday that the police informed her that Pastor Smith was a con­vict­ed felon who did time in a Canadian prison for sex­u­al­ly assault­ing a male victim.
♦When did the Jamaican police come into this infor­ma­tion, and since they know that this guy is a con­vict­ed felon, why were senior mem­bers of the JCF carous­ing with him?
♦Under what cir­cum­stances was pas­tor Kevin Smith afford­ed a police escort some time ago?
♦ Forget about the politi­cians who were seen kiss­ing him and bow­ing down to him; the police have a high­er duty to be circumspect.
♦Why was Kevin Smith out of hand­cuffs at the police sta­tion after he was arrest­ed, allowed to chat and laugh with cops, not as mur­der accused, but as a nor­mal friend of the police?
♦ what are the details of the pris­on­er trans­fer that result­ed in the death of a young con­sta­ble and Kevin Smith?
♦Which senior offi­cer planned and coör­di­nat­ed the trans­fer cross-Island of this high-pro­file mur­der accused?
♦What were the secu­ri­ty pro­to­cols and con­tin­gen­cies in place if efforts were afoot to snatch Smith from police custody?
♦Was Kevin Smith hand­cuffed as police pro­to­col dictates?
♦If Kevin Smith was not prop­er­ly secured, whose deci­sion was it not to have him prop­er­ly secured?
♦Was the Commanding Officer for the parish of Saint James present and involved in plan­ning that high-pro­file pris­on­er transfer?
♦If no, why not?
♦Was the com­mis­sion­er of police Antony Anderson involved in every stage of this impor­tant transfer/
♦If the answer is no, what was more impor­tant on his sched­ule than to ensure that all of the box­es were checked?
♦A young police offi­cer lost his life, and two oth­ers are bat­tling for their lives; this is not a case where the coun­try should be told that “wi haf­fi give Tony a chance.”

If the job is too big for Tony, I do not see how Prime Minister Andrew Holness and the Police Services Commission can con­tin­ue to foist this lev­el of incom­pe­tence on the coun­try sim­ply because they all belong to the same damn coun­try club.
Under no cir­cum­stances would this be tol­er­at­ed from a mem­ber who came up through the ranks, why is there so much silence in the face of Anderson’s failures?
It is cer­tain­ly not the job of Antony Anderson(Tony) to micro-man­age every detail of the force, so you tun­nel vision­ar­ies can back the fuck off.….….Nevertheless, it is the Coach’s job to ensure that he has com­pe­tent peo­ple in place to exe­cute sound poli­cies. Since we can­not fire the whole team it is time for Tony to go.
Sure, the team will still be the same but good poli­cies and train­ing, account­abil­i­ty pro­to­cols and atten­tion to detail can turn around any lack­lus­ter team to one that per­forms at least com­pa­ra­ble to others.
Even the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

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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.