In the video below, courtesy of the Jamaican Observer, Acting Assistant Commissioner Derrick ‘Cowboy’ Knight (then Senior Superintendent of Police), talks about one of his encounters with Jamaican criminals in downtown Kingston.
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In Jamaica, almost 300 people are killed each year by the Jamaican police, 10 times the number of Jamaican police officers killed in the line of duty. Many Jamaicans view the Jamaican police force as corrupt, abusive and useless. But do you think that the job of a Jamaican police officer is easy? It is hard to feel sympathy for the Jamaican police especially when there are many accounts of Jamaican police abusing citizens, some even ending in death.
Over the past 20 years, there has been little or no success in reducing Jamaica’s high crime rate and the typical response is the use of force. As the saying goes “fight fire with fire”.
Fortunately not all Jamaican police officers are corrupt or abusive and dangers that they face are often underplayed. Hopefully the good police officers will have the courage to step up to the plate and maybe just maybe, the Jamaican public will begin to show them more sympathy.
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