March 12, 2001
JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY Carl Stone 1991/ Glen McFarlane 2000
The fear factor The fear factor is a major ingredient in our now entrenched culture of violence. The cult heroes in the police force are the bad policemen who criminals fear because they know their capability for violence. IN Jamaica, any police force that lacks that kind of resource will be treated as a joke by gunmen. There is, however, too much random and unnecessary violence by the police against citizens. What I call the balance of terror by which the police use random violence to fight crime has been operating very inefficiently, clumsily and often outside the realm of the rule of law. There are far too many assassinations. Far too many shootings in the back of the jeep. There are far too many killings of unarmed corner youth and too much use of violence to generally harass the public and build up a wall of hostility towards the police and the crime-fighting effort. We have made a serious error in militarizing the police force to fight violent crime and criminals because the police on the whole have been using misdirected violence against too many harmless and innocent citizens. (3) Glen McFarlane/Herald June 25-July 1, 2000 The incidence of savagery committed by the security forces against young men in this country, especially against ghetto youth, will not go away. Like the mon and political corruption, police brutality has its low phases and at times it erupts into national prominence with such acts as the suffocation of Agana Barrett, the beating to death of Michael Gayle and the battering of hundreds of inmates at the St. Catherine District Prison. Over the years, scores of innocent if foolhardy young men of inner city communities have been left crippled or shot dead by the security forces in questionable circumstances. I say foolhardy because extensive examination into the background of most of these people uncover no connection to criminality. Yet they are reported to have courted their own demise by singularly attacking fully armed carloads of security officers who had no choice but to defend themselves with their guns. Is it possible that Jamaican police are not trained in unarmed combat so that gunfire has to be their sole option in any confrontation? There is also the misconception that it was the era of the Suppression of Crimes Act with its wanton disregard for citizens' rights, which served to usher in the phenomena of "Shattas' and ‘Cowboys' or rogue cops who use the law as a front for their own brutish oppression. What we have here is a tradition of savagery for even in the so-called good old colonial days some cops were battering citizens with impunity. Which is why the monster of police brutality will be with us for a long time unless the good cops come forward and act to retain the respect which is due to their chosen profession. The 1940's case of policeman Arthur Bartley, is little remembered, but highlights the point. Guns were not standard issue in those days but AB used his baton to terrorize poor people for years. When he died huge crowds converged to pour feces on his coffin, in celebration. Pundits of the day wrote a song saying he was so terrible even the devil didn't want him in hell. There are many verses to the song but I recall these two: AB went to hell to see the devil in his den He took a card to show that he was of Stan's men Satan didn't look so please to see AB It looked like the two of them would not agree, Mr. Satan, I am your man, and I will work the best I can. I beat a boy until him faint down Chancery Lane I took a woman to jail in baby pain I draped a poor old man who was out begin bread And I served a summons to a woman that was dead Mr Satan I am your man and I will work the best I can. If and when the society's conscience is pricked by busybody human rights individuals calling for a stop to police excesses and demanding that a stand be taken against rogue cops in the system, law-abiding citizens tend to waffle on the subject. They claim the police have a dangerous job, which is true; and they claims it is only a few men in the security forces who brutalize citizens, which is not true If rouge cops are indeed in the minority then it should be easy to root them out. But is it? .... A young woman who sought refuge at a police station was raped and buggered by policemen who should have been her protectors. Have we heard any outcry from the good cops? Silence is usually taken as consent. Like it or not, roguery and police brutality are fast becoming permanent features of the social fabric. Who will bell the cat? Click here to return to Jamaicans United Against Police Brutality homepage. |