Where Does Tapia Get The Balls To Speak About Police Corruption In Jamaica?

From time to time I myself have chas­tised oth­ers for engag­ing in ad hominem attacks on mes­sen­gers because they dis­agree with the mes­sage.
At the same time, I have also reserved the right to ques­tion the right of cer­tain mes­sen­gers to car­ry a cer­tain mes­sage because of the lev­el of taint on them, (lack of moral author­ity), and in par­tic­u­lar, the mes­sen­ger’s lack of (stand­ing) to car­ry that mes­sage.

In the United States, for exam­ple, a per­son may file a claim in court that is a per­fect­ly legit­i­mate claim to be adju­di­cat­ed. Nevertheless, that case may very well get tossed by a judge because the peti­tion­er did not have “stand­ing” to file the claim.
Standing in the legal sense is the abil­i­ty of a par­ty to bring a law­suit in court based upon their stake in the out­come. A par­ty seek­ing to demon­strate stand­ing must be able to show the court suf­fi­cient con­nec­tion to and harm from the law or action challenged.

It is for that rea­son that I find the US Ambassador to Jamaica, Donald Tapia’s con­sis­tent inser­tion of his opin­ions into Jamaican mat­ters increas­ing­ly offen­sive & wor­ri­some.
I must reit­er­ate, as I have done every time that I broach this sub­ject of Jamaica’s sov­er­eign­ty, “Jamaica is not the 51^st state of the United States, and nei­ther should Jamaica seek to become that”.
As a diplo­mat, Tapia has no right dis­cussing inter­nal Jamaican pol­i­tics, not with Journalists, not with any­one.
But that is exact­ly what Tapia did while speak­ing to Jamaica Observer Editors at the Beechwood Avenue Headquarters on the sub­ject of cor­rup­tion with­in the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
Naturally, cor­rup­tion is a burn­ing issue across the length and breadth of Jamaica, not just in the JCF but across all pub­lic and pri­vate bod­ies.
Why the Observer Editors decid­ed to dis­cuss the JCF and the use of Polygraph with a for­eign diplo­mat is any­body’s guess.
Donald Tapia’s boss at State Pompeo oper­ates out­side the laws and could do well with a poly­graph test.
The larg­er fish at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue is so cor­rupt that he could not be trust­ed to give a depo­si­tion in his own defense by his bat­tery of lawyers, out of fear that he would com­mit perjury.

Donald Tapia echoes what I have con­sis­tent­ly writ­ten, that when it comes to police cor­rup­tion in Jamaica the issue must be broached from the head. That process if attacked from the top is the best way to begin to have senior offi­cers that new recruits to the force can look up to. It also pro­duces a cadre of lead­ers who set good exam­ples of integri­ty but on lead­er­ship over­all.
As a for­eign diplo­mat, Tapia has absolute­ly no stand­ing to be inter­ven­ing in the inter­nal work­ings of Jamaica, much less in how our police depart­ment is man­aged.
This should alarm every Jamaican that a for­eign diplo­mat is allowed to inter­act with Jamaica’s law enforce­ment, (least of all an American diplo­mat).
The United States has some of the most cor­rupt police depart­ments in the world. In most cas­es, entire depart­ments oper­ate as a law unto them­selves. Groups of cops and indi­vid­ual offi­cers, assault cit­i­zens, fal­si­fy reports, plant evi­dence, kill unarmed cit­i­zens based on their race, and com­mit all sorts of egre­gious crimes, they are hard­ly ever held account­able for these crimes against entire com­mu­ni­ties.
As a con­se­quence, no American politi­cian has the moral author­i­ty, much less the stand­ing to give advice to any coun­try on police cor­rup­tion or how to fix it.
For decades and decades, America has turned a blind to the killings, abuse and mass incar­cer­a­tion of its black cit­i­zens by cor­rupt police departments 

According to the Jamaica Observer, Tapia dis­closed that in a sit-down with the police it was made clear that the poly­graph test­ing of new recruits and rank-and-file mem­bers was not enough to ensure the trans­for­ma­tion of the 152-year-old force.
“…Today to become a JCF offi­cer you have to take a poly­graph test. I think it was last year it was 150 peo­ple that applied to become a JCF [mem­ber], only like 75 of them actu­al­ly passed the poly­graph test to move on. So that 75, or what­ev­er the num­ber is, those are all clean offi­cers. But, my point to them is the fact is, okay, so they’re clean, [but] what about this sec­tion up here? They’ve been here for five years. They did­n’t take a poly­graph test,” Tapia said, refer­ring to the force’s offi­cer lev­el, “They did­n’t take a test.”

Of course, it goes with­out say­ing that fish rots from the head. Of course, in this medi­um, we have long point­ed out that cor­rup­tion should be tack­led from the top.
What we can­not sub­scribe to, is peo­ple with­out a moral com­pass and lack of stand­ing preach­ing to us how to fix cor­rup­tion in our coun­try.
I find it incred­i­ble that the Jamaican gov­ern­ment would see this as some­thing it wants to engage in, not to men­tion with this American admin­is­tra­tion of all pos­si­bil­i­ties.
While we are on the sub­ject of poly­graph test­ing, It must first be under­stood that it is not a sci­ence, nei­ther are the results of poly­graph test­ing admis­si­ble in American courts.
Polygraph test­ing will not deter­mine the qual­i­ty of the JCF, or any gov­ern­ment body.
It is sim­ply one more tool giv­en to those who are tasked with select­ing good qual­i­ty can­di­dates for sen­si­tive posi­tions.
If mem­bers of the JCF are sub­ject­ed to poly­graph test­ing so too should all oth­er pub­lic sec­tor employ­ees.
Law enforce­ment web­sites argue, it is impor­tant to note that the poly­graph test is not always 100% accu­rate and you may “false­ly fail” the test.
They also pro­vide guide­lines on how to pre­pare for a poly­graph test and how to be suc­cess­ful at pass­ing them.
By virtue of this, less empha­sis should be placed on Polygraph tests and more on pay­ing qual­i­fied can­di­dates a liv­able wage and insti­tut­ing appro­pri­ate super­vi­sion at all lev­els. Check out the link below on the poly­graph.
https://​golawen​force​ment​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​h​o​w​-​t​o​-​m​a​s​t​e​r​-​t​h​e​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​-​p​o​l​y​g​r​a​p​h​-​t​e​st/

Massachusetts Senator and Presidential can­di­date Elizabeth Warren in 2019 blast­ed Donald Tapia and oth­ers cho­sen by Donald Trump as woe­ful­ly unqual­i­fied for there posi­tions.
On her offi­cial twit­ter account sen­a­tor Warren said, “For decades, admin­is­tra­tions of both polit­i­cal par­ties appoint­ed big donors as ambas­sadors. They’re usu­al­ly not experts in the coun­try, for­eign pol­i­cy — or any­thing else rel­e­vant to the job. But, Donald Trump per­fect­ed the act of sell­ing swanky diplo­mat­ic posts to rich buf­foons.”
Senator Warren named Gordon Sondland, Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson, Doug Manchester, and Kelly Knight Craft as donor ambas­sadors, along with Trump’s ambas­sador appoint­ment to Jamaica – Arizona busi­ness­man Donald Ray Tapia.
Not only does Tapia not have stand­ing or moral con­vic­tion to speak on cor­rup­tion, but his very ambas­sador­ship is also a prod­uct of cor­rupt prac­tices.
One of the most dif­fi­cult mes­sages to com­mu­ni­cate with Jamaicans liv­ing at home who have strong views on American pol­i­tics, is that even though they may fol­low the news, they do not have the lived expe­ri­ence.
Jamaica should not be tak­ing advice on polic­ing, much less on cor­rup­tion from an unqual­i­fied neo­phyte who comes from one of the most cor­rupt regimes in American history.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.