Orville Taylor | Support and endorsement are not the same

No one in his right mind supports criminality over law enforcement. Actually, let me take that back. Indeed, there are persons who think they are in their right minds who directly and indirectly benefit from criminal enterprises. As hinted in my last column, decisions and indecisions in our government, especially between the 1960s and 1970s, created an alternative system.

One would be surprised how deep the links go.

Policymakers did not listen when Orlando Patterson, then a young sociologist, wrote Children of Sisyphus, a treatise on slum life and the story of the underclass.

All the protest songs of Desmond Dekker, Bob Andy, and myriad others spoke of the overall marginalisation and neglect of the poor.

Let us first accept the reality and blame from a structural point of view. We created the fermenting pot for the criminal hero to arise because we were more interested in remodelling the plantation, with deputy whites and ambitious blacks replacing the former slavers.

It was easy because on the plantation, large numbers of the slave drivers were black, and they transitioned into a constabulary.

Long before we felt a bizarre kind of pride that our convict might have beaten a fallen American rapper mogul to a pulp, we had ‘Rhygin’, Ivanhoe Martin, upon whose life a loose biopic became the most famous Jamaican movie ever, The Harder They Come.

A hardened criminal, Martin would leave notes and letters for the police. Using the term loosely, he became a folk hero, and many expressed genuine sorrow and grief when he was cut down in a hail of bullets while engaging the security forces.

Just around when our prime minister was born, the two main political parties stepped up their game and engaged criminal elements.

Each had gang enforcers and entire communities headed by area dons, who simply functioned as arms of the political parties, almost in the same way that the major trade unions did.

True, we are in a different dispensation now, and there is greater emphasis on law and order. However, there is still much about the fabric of Jamaican society that has not yet been fully changed.

The dons and other top ‘shotters’ did not only fill the power vacuum but, in many cases, provided material support for members of the community. The police themselves will admit that a significant percentage of the population subsists because criminals help to cater to some of their day-to-day needs.

It certainly does not help either that despite the efforts to shift the paradigm and improve the quality of policing, there are still some of those very plantation-type residuals within the constabulary that keep kicking over the pail of milk.

That Jamaica is in a war with criminals is not up for question. Despite the lowering of the homicide rate, the level of violence is still unacceptable, and in particular the activities of felons brave and armed enough to take on the security forces.

Something happened in Sligoville just over a week ago, and it has everyone agitated and nervous. What is factual and irrefutable is that two civilians were killed, a 10-year-old female child was injured, and two police officers died.

Information is that during a targeted operation in search of one of Jamaica’s most wanted, the police were led to a house where shooting took place, with a massive amount of ammunition used. The building that housed the suspect had more holes than a liar’s story.

As is its duty, the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) was early on the scene and is carrying out its normal investigation. Where the police are involved in shooting incidents resulting in fatalities, INDECOM is bound by law to investigate. This has nothing to do with whether or not there is any belief that the police acted improperly or illegally.

Of course, the police have to carry out their own inquiries, not just regarding the civilians killed and the child injured, but also as regards the circumstances under which their members were slain.

In fact, as painful as it might be for the survivors, a full report has to be provided by the ground commander or squad leader, dotting every ‘I’ and crossing every ‘T’ to ensure that all standard operating procedures (SOPs) were followed and whether or not there was any slip or avoidable action that caused the demise of the two policemen.

Every single human life is important, and the relatives and friends of the dead officers need to have this answer. The law and the public also require satisfaction that the deaths of the civilians were precipitated by circumstances they created and that the police acted according to the use-of-deadly-force policy, which is enshrined in their SOPs.

Demanding answers and clarity regarding SOPs is not, by its very nature, an attack against the constabulary. Indeed, blind support for everything the police do is not simply wrong but actually unsupportive because people who mean you well do not rubber-stamp everything that you do. Neither is the antithesis true.

Of course, I stand with the exasperated prime minister in principle because I support the Jamaica Constabulary Force as an entity and insofar as it is doing what is good for Jamaica and its law-abiding members. Nevertheless, as one who never hesitates to step forward to make a difference when asked or needed, it would be disingenuous and even hypocritical to turn a blind eye when questions need answering.

Disagreeing with the High Command, the Police Officers Association, and the Jamaica Police Federation sometimes helps them to succeed. After all, if they kick over the bucket, they might have to milk the bull.

Orville Taylor is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.