Commissioner, let your conscience be your guide

Tue Mar 19, 2013

Editor: “Let your conscience be your guide, boy.”

Even as I am now a man, I can still hear my mother’s words ringing in my ears. What my mother meant was that I must be able to stand by the decisions I made and defend them if I must. You see, when I listen to people like 2 Kool Chris, spouting so much foolishness daily on what he calls responsible programming, it leads me to research the issues he bandies about for weeks on end.{{more}}

One such issue was the re-instating of the three police officers by the Commissioner of Police in 2010.

The facts, as was printed in the newspaper, were that young Jackson was beaten sometime in 2008 by three police officers during the execution of their duties. While it is never right to do wrong, one must not forget that Jackson, even at age 15, had a string of alleged burglaries to his name. So, the police officers, and here I am quoting Miller and Magistrate Browne, “acted out of exuberance, in the spirit of wanting to get the job done”. You see, had Jackson only so much as passed too close to 2 Kool Chris, and he knew that this was the young man who was a perpetrator of crimes all over the place, 2 Kool himself may have administered the beating. The shoe only squeezes when it is on the other foot.

I remember all too well, the incident at Prep School where the gate was locked for security reasons by the security guard on duty. 2 Kool’s child is a student there and he didn’t play to tell the nation what he would do if it “been he that happen to” referring to the incident. But that’s the mettle of 2 Kool, disguising under responsible journalism.

Getting back to the police force issue. I decided to do my own investigations into the reinstating of the three police officers and other stories that come from the police force. You see, whenever I speak, I have a choice as to whether I speak garbage or I speak from an informed position.

1. The three police officers who used excessive force on Jackson were reinstated to their posts within the constabulary. The decision by COP Miller was well received by ALL senior police officers that I have spoken to. According to them, it could have been any one of them.

2. When the police officer who on 26th December, without a personal licence, drove an uninsured vehicle, struck and killed young Cruickshank in the prime of his life on the La Croix road, he was fired forthwith and deserved to be fired. That is the opinion of ALL senior police officers that I have spoken to on the matter.

3. SSU Officer Mc Dowall has not been re-stated to his post after being found guilty of manslaughter. And there are so many more stories which time will not permit me to mention here.

What is now rearing its ugly head within the police force is theft of people’s belongings while in police custody. Quite recently, one young man used the newspaper to make his plight known. This is unacceptable, since police officers are responsible for upholding law and order, and they themselves must be held blameless. The police force is in need of a good purging, so that the work of policing can continue. There must be zero tolerance for this sort of behaviour within the police force. Mr Commissioner, I leave with you the words from my mother: “let your conscience be your guide”.

Kingsley DeFreitas