February 15, 2001
JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST
POLICE BRUTALITY
Since the start of the year 2001 the Jamaican police have already killed at least twenty people provoking demonstrations in rural and urban areas. The British government is releasing five hundred more guns to the police to make them more effecient killers. The so-called human rights training which the police are receiving and which was supposedly the basis upon which the British released the guns has yet to have any noticeable effect on police behaviour. Many of the unreported police abuses have to do with the practice of arbitrarily scraping up young men out of their communities and locking them up without charge. The right to remain silent is not respected and invariably these young men are beaten to obtain information or simply to punish them. We hope that these emails are not about preaching to the converted but will serve to stimulate a broader discussion about holding the Jamaican government and state machinery accountable for these systemic human rights abuses. The following reports from our correspondent underlines our contention about the systemic nature of the problem. Your comments are always welcome. Lloyd D'Aguilar
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT - At The Morgue< The case of the young man at the morgue as related by several people who claimed to know what happened was that he was asked to drive a car because he was the only one in the group of associates who had a license. He didn't know the car was stolen and had been used in robberies the previous night. Senior Superintendent Adams' crew spotted the car, opened fire on it, and the car crashed. The occupants all fled, including the driver got a bullet in his foot. He managed to reach to a tyre man in the immediate vicinity and clung to him as police approached. Police took him some place else and questioned him. Then Adams was heard to say they shouldn't kill him because they would have the trouble of having to account for his death. Adams was then seen to summon soldiers who were apparently also on duty. He reportedly told them, he left a gunman in the bush and instructed the soldiers to kill the young man. The soldiers complied. Are those who overheard Adams saying this willing to testify? I believe some statements have already been collected, but can't say whether critical eyewitnesses are willing to testify. A representative of the Bureau of Special Investigations was present for the autopsy and I asked him how long the investigation was likely to take. He told me between three and six months for the "process" to be complete so the report could be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I asked him how long he would take to complete the "process" if it were a Minister's son shot by police. He said if it were a Minister's son, he wouldn't be the person on the job - it would be handled at the most senior level and he expected it would be handled speedily. I asked him why the difference, even though I was asking the obvious. How many shots did the young man receive? He received three shots - abdomen, shoulder or neck (I can't remember which) and head. Was there an independent family observer at the autopsy? An Indian doctor (representing the state) performed the autopsy and a Nigerian doctor living here, was the observer. I could see that the system does everything to frustrate the observer. The observers are not allowed to ask questions or to make notes. Sometimes they have to park themselves in one spot and not move. Families can have a second autopsy done, but the family observer said when that happens, that private pathologist needs to be at the first autopsy to see what was done then. Observed autopsies are done after the rest. The theory is that those autopsies will take longer, but that wasn't so. The autopsies might take longer if the observer were allowed to do the job. The local government pathologists shuttle the bodies through in 20-30 minutes.
THE MILLICENT FORBES STORY Letter from an eyewitness: "On the 14th of April me and your little girl was standing on Collie Smith Drive. I was eating a piece of cane, she asked for piece and I gave her piece. A [police] jeep came from off 3rd Street coming toward Collie Smith. A police on the back of the jeep firing shots saying he saw a group of gunmen going cross Collie Smith Drive. While he were firing shots me and your daughter was shot. I lift her up while I had shot in my foot, saying if anything I will be the evidence. The police heard what I am saying and says to his friends that ‘we can't let this boy be witness on us,' so they take me to the May Pen Cemetery and fired one shot in my head. They took me to the KPH [Kingston Public Hospital] thinking I was dead. .................... I want you to keep in touch with me as early as possible before ...... my trial date....the police didn't get no gun from me, I am innocent."
Report from Donmair Police from Constant Spring scraped up four young men from a work site. They were taken into a military truck and made to sit on their hands and put their faces to their knees. A soldier put his foot on the back of the neck of one of the youth and hit him with an M16 behind his ears and on his shoulders. He was taken out at the station where he was punched in the face and the back of the head. He passed out and knew nothing until he found himself at UWI hospital. He was returned to the police station, and a police inspector insisted that he be released when police officers wanted to lock him up. When enquiries were made of the Inspector in charge at the police station he said that the youth was not beaten that he was an epileptic and had fainted when he reached the police station!!
Senior Superintendent Adams and Fisher and Pepper Spraying A man by the name of Fisher called Wilmot Perkins' radio programme to say that he was having a dance on last Thursday night. The Constant Spring police had passed by and said nothing. Then Adams and his men came and smashed the sound boxes and sprayed Fisher's baby mother's eyes with pepper spray. Perkins got Adams on the line. Adams said he was on operations in the area but denied smashing the boxes, he only moved them, and did not pepper spray Fisher's baby mother's eyes. Perkins then opened the line to Fisher who said "The Superintendent is a liar.". Adams then said on the phone that he had not come for this, and he hung up. A woman from Fisher's community came on the phone and said she saw police kicking down the boxes. He then went into Fisher's yard, and she heard the pregnant woman cry out. A young man came on air to say he saw when police put pepper spray into the woman's eyes. As for the developing pepper spray habit, Adams and his team were in the St John's Road area last Saturday night where they pepper-sprayed another pregnant woman and an 80-year-old woman.
August Town and the Walking Revolver People in August Town were very offended by a police raid, conducted by police from outside the community. They were especially upset as the community has been relatively peaceful for over two years now. People stood their ground when young man who was among occupants of a car was accused of having illegal firearm, because they know him as a good youth who was not mixed up in anything. They were sure the firearm was planted. A policewoman boxed the youth and told him "Ah dead yuh haffi dead". The police vehicle drove off with the youth. People from August Town followed and did not let the police car out of sight. Police took the youth to Half-Way Tree police station where the people made a stink. That police eventually let him go because the gun allegedly found on him turned out to belong to one of the policemen in the raid!! Unfortunately the youth does not want to follow-up the situation. Perhaps he is still in shock at still being alive, since the Kingston Public Hospital ending of that story was already written. Aftermath of a Police Raid in Seaview Last night Hunt's Bay police invaded one of the streets in the area, searching without warrants and scraping up people and taking them to Hunt's Bay Police Station. My informant took her phone (with me at the other end) to a spot where I could get a feel of the discussions after the night's raid. The people sounded violated and exposed and vulnerable. You may know that some zinc roofs are held down by bricks. One family found themselves looking into police flashlights after police ripped off their roof. The community was particularly enraged at the indiscriminate searchings that included Christian people. Two brothers, schoolboys aged 15 and 17 were awakened from their bed and taken to the police station for no known reason. They were released before the end of the day. My friend says no way police will be entering her house without a search warrant or a watertight reason to justify the urgency of the search. Some people may talk lightly, but not her.
A killing in Marverly Today we went to visit the mother of the youth killed a week ago by the police. The young man was 22 and a Rasta. Family and friends said he always had his packet of weed, but they couldn't remember him ever having a knife on him, much less the gun that police said they found on his body after he allegedly fired at them. He had just bought a cup of soup when an unmarked police vehicle approached him. Eyewitnesses saw him with his hands in the air, and the cup of soup held in one hand. The person who identified the body said his fingers were still curved as if he was holding the cup when he was killed. The policeman fired a shot from inside his vehicle and then came out to finish him off. People felt he went away because he didn't at the time have the gun to plant on the rasta youth. Some who were nearby say they heard six shots and ran for cover because they assumed this was a gang killing. The policeman who did the killing is regarded as a known killer, and has gone on trial for murder and been set free three times. However, some people I spoke to thought he might have shot as many as 50 people. The Rasta community has rallied around, with contributions coming in even from from prominent musicians to help the family hire a lawyer. Click here to return to Jamaicans United Against Police Brutality homepage. |