RECENT ‘confrontations’ and ‘shootouts’ resulting in the deaths of women, old people and children have prompted many from all walks of life in our society to conclude that the generally brutal nature of policing in Jamaica has been stepped up more than a notch.

Let us admit at the outset that our society is in fact a brutal one, although the vast majority of us living here are not gun-toting criminals. The guns are in the hands of young men, many of whom have long declared their disconnect from humanity. Guns are also in the hands of our policemen, too many of whom have encapsulated themselves into a ‘we versus them’ mentality.

Vanessa Kirkland’s mother mourns her shooting death by the police last week.

Many times in the face of genuine confrontations with gun-toting criminals, the police have adopted the approach of Neanderthal man where deadly force is the first resort. There is never an attempt at tactical retreat and ‘serve and protect’ involves no consideration for innocent citizens, with a very heavy bias against poorer, inner-city civilians.

Last Thursday, when I spoke with a few Jamaicans at street level, the Vanessa Kirkland killing was the main focus, and much hostility was being expressed against the police. One bar owner with children said to me, in anger, “If mi si a police pon di road a dead fi thirst, im nah get no water from mi!” She was almost on the verge of tears as we spoke.

Another citizen, a man in his 40s, told me that “criminal and police a same ting”.

Sixteen-year-old Vanessa Kirkland was a fifth-former at Immaculate Conception High School. “She had this habit of sucking her first two fingers,” said one of her classmates to me last Wednesday. “It didn’t trouble us though, and even now, that is how I am seeing her.”

Another told me that she was always expressing concern for her very ill grandmother. Last Tuesday, a few minutes before she died, she was on her cellphone conversing with her best friend. “She was telling her that she was on the way to a nine-night,” another student told me. “All of a sudden her cellphone went dead.”

Considering that the young, inner-city child was shot in the head, there is more than a possibility that her cellphone was destroyed at just about the time when her life was snuffed out by policemen’s bullets.

According to police reports, men who had committed a robbery in Spanish Town were in the car in which she was travelling. In that rather dubious report where the police said “there was a confrontation”, the impression is conveyed that all who were in the car, including the young Vanessa, had committed a crime and were headed to Greenwich Town while being trailed by the police.

But even more disturbing is where “confrontation” implies that even if four people were innocently travelling with one alleged robber, the policemen are perfectly within their right to shoot and kill everyone in the vehicle. Totally unacceptable!

There have been too many instances where the police have shot up public passenger vehicles, in one instance, shooting off the fingers of passengers, and in another, killing them. In all instances, it is just bluster, no appreciation of tactical retreat and a main intent to spill blood.

The criminal side of police thugs

ABOUT 10 years ago, I was sent a copy of a registered title of a house and the most recent valuation of the property in the region of $25 million to $30 million.

It was a veritable palace bought for cash by a police constable.

At the time the document was sent to me and I had spoken to many others, the constable had been killed “by gunmen in a shootout”.

What was the real story?

Months before, another policeman in an ‘operation’ had intercepted a vehicle and seized a few ‘keys’ of cocaine. Instead of making it official and taking in the contraband, the policeman, living somewhere in Portmore, took the drugs to his home.

Those from whom the drugs were taken were not killed and because they did not report anything officially, they had to face the well-known don from the well-known JLP garrison and explain to him what had happened.

The don sent out a message to the policeman, a sergeant who had corralled his stash, telling him to return the stuff, or else. When there was no immediate response the don recruited the constable, who was known in the JCF as a ‘crime fighter’, to secure his drugs.

At the time it was known among his ‘squaddies’ that the constable was more powerful that many senior superintendents of police, having made his links many years ago with the drug underworld. The fancy house was just one of the many embellishments in a country where a policeman pulling down $2 million per year can afford to purchase a Benz or a BMW.

With assistance from his friends in the JCF, the constable visited the home of the sergeant, roughed him up, seized the stolen stash, returned it to the don and collected handsomely. His squaddies also felt the joy in their pockets.

Feeling quite peeved, and knowing that the incident was being circulated in sections of the force, the sergeant planned his way forward. Months later, the police launched an operation in a very troubled inner-city garrison which had been used, abused and ignored by both the PNP and the JLP.

The objective, so the story went, was to flush out gunmen in the community. The sergeant requested, through an intermediary, that the constable known as a crime fighter be part of the operation.

Always anxious to be involved in operations that involved gunplay with high-powered weapons and gunmen from the very vulnerable but dangerous inner-city communities, the constable joined in.

During the operation the constable was killed “in a shootout with gunmen”. In reality, he was mowed down by his own squaddies who were being paid by a don.

The story was bought hook, line and sinker by the public and many of us moved on with our lives. It was, after all, Jamaica, the brutal land aptly described by Junior Gong in his song, Welcome To Jamrock.