March 16, 2001
JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY 7 YOUTH – 15 to 20 YEARS ASSASSINATED BY JAMAICAN POLICE Psychopathic murderer, Senior Superintendent Adams, strikes again. The police story is familiar. They went looking for wanted men. They were fired upon. They returned the fire and this time 7 youth aged between 15 and 20 years old were found dead. The contradictory story of eyewitnesses and neighbors is also familiar. The police were let into the house. They rounded up the youth including one who came to investigate and another who happened to be in the back of the yard with a toothbrush in his hand, and after beating them, executed them inside the house. One youth was heard begging for his life. POLICE COMMISSIONER Frances Forbes was quick to show his support for the actions of Adams. "According to the Commissioner, given the physical limitations of the location -- a house in a densely organised housing scheme -- the police were unable to attempt capturing the men without placing their lives in danger. He said they had no option but to respond in kind once the men refused to surrender and started shooting." Commissioner Forbes thinks we are gullible enough to believe that anyone would fire though aluminum windows at targets they cannot see. And combat veteran Adams would lead a charge into a house against heavily armed men. This latest atrocity must be laid squarely at the feet of Prime Minister P.J. Patterson who has yet to make any comment as is his usual practice.( Nor has the Minister of National Security said anything as is also his usual practice.) The Crime Management Unit, headed by Adams, which committed the killings, and not to be confused by its benign sounding name, is a death squad which was set up immediately after the prime minister's intervention against crime late last year. Since then Adams and his men have committed several executions. They have terrorized communities and locked up many inner city youth without charge. This is Patterson's fight against crime. This continued practice of executions and wide scale terrorism is testament from the state that they no longer feel compelled to abide by their own laws, and have no faith in their judicial system. If that is the case then the people may equally feel that they are no longer duty bound to obey or respect such a ruthless state. The lawless actions of the state, gross violations of human rights, opens up the possibility of new political dynamics of people resistance. For our part we have identified areas where it is possible to enact reforms to make the police accountable for their actions i.e. automatically bringing all police killings before a revitalized coroner's court system for a determination as to whether they should be put on trial; independent investigation of police actions; inventorying of non-police issued weapons to stop the practice of planting weapons on victims. However we recognize that such reforms will come to naught if the government and the state machinery remain committed to brutal police methods as a means of supposedly dealing with crime which stems from acute poverty and social oppression. In the final analysis the people will have to find ways of organizing mass resistance to the undemocratic nature of Jamaican society. As opposition leader Edward Seaga, recently told Jamaicans in Miami, in order to influence developments at home, these Jamaicans who annually contribute over $500 million to the economy in the form of remittances must find ways to use their leverage. We still maintain that an international boycott of tourism is one possible way of exerting leverage, perhaps the most painless way to stop the carnage of our inner-city youth. Now that we see the extent to which the state is prepared to kill its people we are even more convinced that calling for a boycott of tourism is becoming a necessity. Lloyd D'Aguilar
CORRESPONDENT REPORT ON POLICE ASSASSINATIONS Superintendent Adams was on the Perkins Radio show this morning, and I will reproduce some of what he said and compare that to what I saw in Braeton. Adams started out with his version of what happened at Above Rocks when a policeman and a civilian were killed. The police commissioner then put together a management team to gather intelligence on this case. Statements and evidence were gathered and the team went in search of persons. On Wednesday morning, the team picked up one suspect in Cassava Piece, another in Cumberland and then went to Braeton Phase 1 and 2. Adams. Adams says the last Braeton address was not part of his original intelligence. He went to the house in Braeton and told people that he had come to execute warrants for two persons for murder and shooting connected to the murders in Above Rock. He waited two minutes and heard shuffling. Guns then blazed through the metal window. he took cover, and told the people to surrender. There was more fire. The police returned the fire, and after a lull went into the house and saw seven persons shot and injured. No one was shot outside the house. Mutty asked what about the bloodstains outside the house, and Adams said injured persons had bled on the ground on the way to the police vehicles. Perkins said a pool of blood seen on television gave the impression that someone fell there. Adams insisted that people bled on the ground while being taken to the vehicles. Perkins said he heard people say a man was outside the house begging for his life, and Adams said that was not true. Perkins asked Adams about the range of a .38, claimed to be found on the men, and the range of the police guns. Adams said he wouldn't divulge that. Perkins said surely that was public knowledge, and Adams said it was public knowledge for those who need to know. He claimed privilege and would not answer. Perkins asked whether or not Adams could have used neighbouring houses to protect himself and at the same time secure the house so no one could escape. He asked what was the hurry, and why Adams didn't post a guard or teargas the occupants of the house. Why kill them? Adams said he didn't kill anyone, and the matter was still being investigated. He said guns were being fired from the house, and some of the men could have been killed by their own colleagues. Perkins asked why shoot at the house, and Adams said the law gave him the authority to do that. If a suspect was resisting by using firearms, he had the right to use as much force as available or possible. Perkins asked Adams whether or not he had done all in his means to bring offenders before the courts as was his duty. Perkins suggested that instead he had obliterated the men and then accused them of every crime without any means of knowing if the men were guilty of anything. At the end of the exchange, Perkins reiterated that Adams could have captured the men alive as the police have a duty to protect life even if it is the life of an offender. He said he had seen films of police operating in different countries, and that's how it was done. Adams: Remember Waco? The authorities and the group had a stand off for 80 days, and what was the result? No different. Perkins: You weren't even outside the house in Braeton for eight hours. Why didn't you use teargas? Adams: I won't answer that. I have already said why I didn't use tear gas. If you don't remember, I can't help you. Perkins cautioned Adams about arrogance. Now compare that with what I saw and heard in Braeton. The house is one of a number of very small houses on very small plots of land. A shoot out was not possible without having bullets hit neighbouring houses. I saw on bullet mark on a wall near to the living room, and that was all. So if the occupants fired from inside the house, I don't know where the bullets went. The bloodiest room was the most confined space, the second bedroom. The room has one window that is partially blocked by an outside shed. No bullet marks are on the window, so the men could not have been killed from bullets fired from outside the house as Adams claimed. The walls in the house are solid concrete. The tiles were stained red and the room was in total disarray, with blood stains clothes and bedding strewn around. The bathroom, next to that bedroom, was also bloody, in particular the floor. That bathroom has one high window, and I didn't notice any bullet marks on that window. In any event, the bathroom is dark because it adjoins the outside shed, so bullets couldn't have come through that window. The living room has blood on the floor and a large splash of blood on a wall. The living room walls have a cluster of four or five bullet marks near the door, and about six at the upper end of the wall between the living room and the master bedroom. Part of the wall to that corner is shot away. At least one of the living room chairs has a bullet mark through it. Near the splash on the wall was found the remains four pieces of someone's skull. The evidence suggests that the young man had an M16 held to his head and fired. The explosion evidently shattered his skull in fragments and sprayed his brains on the wall. The master bedroom faces the pathway that runs by the house, and has two windows that would have seemed likely places for firing at the police from inside the house. This bedroom shows the least signs of any activity. The metal loeuvre windows showed bullet holes in eleven places. About seven of those were from outside shots and about four were shots from inside the house. The shots from outside seemed to be at an angle, suggesting that the police were above the windows. Residents report that the police were on the roofs of houses and fired at the windows from that position. The media today showed a photo of one of the bullet holes from inside out, using that as proof that gunmen were firing at the police. However, the angle of all bullet holes from inside out shows that the bullets were fired with the window closed so no target could be seen. The community's account is that four young men were staying in the house. The police came there around 4.30 on Wednesday morning with a youth from Cassava Piece who was familiar with the occupants of the house. The police took that youth to knock on the door and induce the others to open up. When someone inside opened the door, the police forced their way in and partially damaged the door. The police took the four young men outside of the house, searched, questioned and beat all five. They then returned the five young men to the house and systematically killed them. Neighbours were aware of the young men calling community members by name and asking for help. I met one of these persons, an older man who is a neighbour and who has been unable to sleep at night because he is guilty about being so helpless when he heard the young men being murdered. One young man was drawn to the house by the shouts for help. He was taken in by the police and killed. Another young man young man was walking along the pathway, brushing his teeth and going on an errand when police shot him dead in the pathway. Before he was shot down, members of the community began to converge on the house. Three policemen then pointed their guns at the people and ordered them to stay away. The community named a television reporter who was present with the police when the last young man was killed. The cameras were turned off at the time. The community also says that one of the young men was alive when he was taken to the hospital. The police then took him away, and when the police returned to the hospital, the young man was dead. I met friends of the deceased men who used to visit the house and play dominoes, and they were in shock because they realized they could have been dead also. I met the mother of the young man who died with his toothbrush in his hand. She seemed to be coping, but said she has not slept since her son was killed, and she fears her pressure is gone high. Another mother was unable to leave her home because she is under sedation. People seemed too shocked to mount a public protest. The police cordoned off the area till 10am on Wednesday while they removed spent shells from the scene, and otherwise contaminated the crime scene. The police then left the house without any attempt to secure what evidence remained.
EXCERPTS FROM GLEANER
REPORT
Throughout the morning and early afternoon, detectives and other uniformed policemen milled around the house, while outside a handful of residents grumbled under their breath as they watched the policemen at work. "De whole a dem a murderer. Look wey dem kill de youth," said one woman, pointing to the blood stain in the pathway, where she claimed Virgo was cut down. "Dem coulda carry in even two a dem," said another woman. However, relatives and people in the community have denied police reports that there was a shoot-out. "Me hear me bredda a beg dem (police) nuh fe kill him," said a tearful Sasha Beckford. "It was no shoot-out because one a de youth even dead wid him toothbrush in a him mouth," she said. A group of residents told The Gleaner more than 40 police and soldiers swooped down on the house. "Some were on the slab roof and others surrounded the house. Look how much a dem and not even one get shot or a scrape. This is cold blooded killing and because a poor people pickney dem nutten naaw go come out a it," the resident said. The shooting took place at Grant's house and according to one of his aunts, Veneta Robinson, this was where "Chris and his friend cook everyday and cool out. Him was no wanted man," she sobbed. STOP THE KILLINGS. Lloyd D'Aguilar
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