Police Corruption and Vybz Kartel

One again we talk openly of Police Corruption. I keep saying and keep writing about this monster. Police who are corrupt are now in the majority.

The corruption permeates all strata of the force. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

Can you imagine that in the biggest high profile case in Jamaica to date (the Adidja Palmer, aka, Vybz Kartel’s case), police tampered the evidence? Policemen are trained to handle exhibits and evidence with professionalism and integrity. Yet after a century of the establishment of a police force in the island, this decade has witnessed the most corrupt attempts to pervert the course of justice.

Personally, I no longer have any respect for Bigga Ford (Senior Superintendent of police).

For Ford to come to court to tell the Judge, the trial Judge he has no knowledge of the page with documentation regarding the accused Kartel is mind boggling and certainly stupid. At most it is comical, because only a fool would believe that. People just do not walk around and tear out a page from someone’s book, especially if it is government’s property. Just yesterday I was looking at the Staff Order for the Public Service and it is a no –  no. Employees are admonished not to destroy government property or to abuse or steal from the government. Yet this is what occurred. I am wondering what is taking the Commissioner so long to fire Bigga Ford.  On March 20, on ‘Impact’ Retired Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams reiterated that so much corruption was evident in policemens’ attempts to influence Kartel’s case. He also said if he was Commissioner of Police, then these corrupt agents would have to go. The sad issue is that police support police and protect each other. They have so many skeletons in their closets that no police wants to rock the cradle. No one wants to offend another fearing when he violates the law, he will need cover from his “squaddy”.  We hear of officers who rape, who are in drug running, who are part of extortion rings and yet nobody challenges them.

Cornwall Bigga Ford’s name has always been mentioned with unsavoury folks over the years and he has always given an image of a good cop.

He does not care when people call your name, even if what they are saying is not true.  That however is questionable coming off the back of this case. Then there is the case of Kartel’s cellular phone being used for personal calls subsequent to the confiscation by the police.  It’s an amusing piece –  a phone involved in a murder investigation being used for  personal  objectives  not relating to accused.  What a disgrace. The officer whose responsibility it was to keep this exhibit under lock and key is one with poor judgement, poor training and no integrity. Referring to his leaving the key on his desk, one can justifiably state that he needs to go back to training school. What was he thinking? That police stations are play pens for children or that they were like well guarded fortresses? It is pathetic that these are people Jamaicans expect to protect and serve. How do these corrupt police in the force feel when they walk the streets? Can they hold up their head high? Are they cognizant that they have children and families who people in the society know and will make the association of corrupt family members?

As a society we have lost all values, morals and ethics. For corruption to permeate the society so much is sickening. But guess what, it is business as usual for many of us, but not for all of us. Like Sodom  and  Gomorrah , there will still be a few who do not bow. Only one institution can clip the wing of the corrupt police force and that is the embassy. No corrupt police officer desires to lose his US visa, that is if he has one. Otherwise, no Minister of Security, no senior officer or the Commissioner will take action. You see they want to continue to ‘eat a food’ with the support of these low life people who should safeguard our beloved country. Greed and selfishness will continue to haunt us as individuals compete for material largesse by playing with the devil, by making sin appear to be the norm.

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