JAMAICA: FATAL POLICE SHOOTINGS AND EXTRAJUDICIAL

UNCLAS KINGSTON 000228

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA/CAR (JOE TILGHMAN)
INL/LP (BOZZOLO)

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PREL ELAB SOCI KCRM JM XL

SUBJECT: JAMAICA: FATAL POLICE SHOOTINGS AND EXTRAJUDICIAL
EXECUTIONS

REF: (A) 07 KINGSTON 1301

(B) 07 KINGSTON 1462
(C) 07 KINGSTON 1805
(D) 08 KINGSTON 219
(E) 07 KINGSTON 1813

Summary:
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1. (U) Local Human Rights NGO Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) released a
joint study with George Washington University (GWU) law school on
fatal police shootings in Jamaica. According to the report, there
were over 270 victims of police killings in 2007, nearly a fifth of
all murders committed last year. The motives behind unlawful
killings range from reckless or negligent homicides, to calculated
vigilantism, to corruption and political polarization. The report
cites deeply deficient police investigations; a lack of effective
independent oversight; and pervasive pro-police bias among
investigators, prosecutors and judges as factors allowing this trend
to continue. End Summary.

Background: Police shootings in Jamaica
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3. (U) Since 2004, over 700 people have been shot and killed by
police under circumstances that, in a "substantial percentage" of
cases, point to summary or arbitrary executions. In 2007 alone, a
record year for the third year in a row, 272 people died violently
at the hands of Jamaican police, the majority of them probable
victims of extrajudicial executions. (Another 153 were shot and
injured.) For years, national and international human rights
organizations have denounced the longstanding practice of excessive
use of lethal force by Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) officers.
They also have echoed the popular sentiment that such police
violence is generally directed at persons belonging to lower
socio-economic sectors who reside in marginal or "inner-city"
neighborhoods.


4. (U) One of the principal factors motivating the surge of police
killings is the persistence of impunity, which traditionally has
protected perpetrators from prosecution in the vast majority of such
cases. The miniscule number of police shooting cases involving
fatalities or injuries that actually make it to the criminal courts
-- less than 10 percent of the total since 1999 -- is testimony to
the persistent obstacles to accountability. In all that time, there
has been only one conviction for murder by a police officer, in

2006. In a seminal 2004 report on the subject, Jamaicans for
Justice (JFJ),a non-profit, non-partisan citizens' rights action
group, revealed not only that police killings continued, but also
that there existed a parallel "pattern of impunity" flowing from the
failure of the Jamaican justice system to respond adequately or
effectively to this practice. The JFJ report diagnosed a series of
institutional deficiencies in the investigation and prosecution of
police perpetrators that continue to be of critical importance to
the present day. Without proper investigations or true
accountability for arbitrary or unlawful police conduct, there is
little incentive for agents to control it.

Goals of the report
--------------


5. (U) The Report conducted by JFJ with assistance from the GWU law
school seeks to update JFJ's study with respect to the escalating
number of fatal police shootings and extrajudicial executions since
2004, as well as the "pattern of impunity" that feeds it. In
addition to providing the latest empirical evidence on police
killings, it examines the recent functioning of the authorities,
mechanisms, and procedures charged under Jamaican law with ensuring
that police who exceed their legal mandate in the use of lethal
force are held accountable. The initial objective of the report is
to paint a comprehensive picture of the full-scale human rights
crisis prevailing in Jamaica today in this regard. The second
objective is to analyze this situation in light of Jamaica's legal
obligations under the American Convention on Human Rights to
determine precisely how and why the country is seriously out of
compliance with prevailing standards of civilized conduct.

Political will for change
--------------


6. (U) Despite the serious allegations of the report, JFJ does hold
out hope for the current Government of Jamaica (GoJ) to address
these issues. Prime Minister Bruce Golding (PM Golding) and the
ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) have made crime one of the pillars
of their manifesto released at the start of the 2007 election
campaign (Ref A). The challenges facing the JLP-led government of
PM Golding when he took office in September of 2007 were no less
daunting than those faced by his predecessors. The problem of

violent crime remains critical: Jamaica manifests a per capita
homicide rate that is one of the highest in the world (Ref B).
Well-armed gangs trafficking in narcotics and guns exercise control
in many inner-city communities. In 2007 19 police officers were
killed in the line of duty; in 2006 10 officers were killed and 2005
the number was 13.


7. (U) The first major step to address the issue of crime and lack
of professionalism in the JCF was the appointment of Rear Admiral
Hardley Lewin, a 27 year veteran of the Jamaica Defense Force (JDF),
as the Commissioner of Police in December 2007. He brings a
no-nonsense, strictly disciplined approach to managing the force of
approximately 8,000 police officers. He has already announced
several organizational changes of the force, including combining
existing sub-units and moving officers to different posts throughout
the island. In his inaugural press conference in December, Lewin
recognized that the JCF's hard-line approach had not worked. Violent
crime and homicides have not been reduced significantly, he said,
and "too much killing" had continued. Stating that "you cannot
fight fire with fire," Commissioner Lewin announced a comprehensive
new strategy to shift the focus of law enforcement away from a
"war-on-crime" model premised on concerted use of force, to one that
stresses the role of a modern, professionalized police organization
allied with civil society in communities throughout the country to
address the root causes of crime, as well as its consequences. He
acknowledged that there should be greater accountability for police
abuses. In response to specific questions about the wave of apparent
extrajudicial killings by police, he insisted that such cases would
be "dealt with seriously and ruthlessly," and invited public
scrutiny of the implementation of his new policies (Ref C).


8. (SBU) As noted Ref (D),during a meeting with DAS Madison in late
February, Commissioner Lewin advised that he plans to equip the
police with mace (they will still carry side arms),as a non-lethal
alternative in responding to enforcement situations. He announced
on March 10 that the JCF is doing away with the U.S.-made M-16
assault rife in favor of the less deadly MP5 sub-machine gun from
Heckler and Koch of Germany. According to the announcement, only
members of the Mobile Reserve, a special squad formed to deal with
civil unrest and/or national emergencies, will be allowed to
continue using the M-16. The Commissioner has also moved to lighten
the caseload of the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI),the unit
responsible for investigating all police shootings, by taking away
over 400 cases which did not involve serious injury or death from
BSI to divisional levels in an attempt to ease the workload.


9. (U) Also encouraging are the actions of high ranking GoJ
officials. A few days after security forces shot five men to death
in west Kingston on January 13, 2008, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce
Golding visited the house where the killings took place. He observed
that the manner in which the men were slain "raises questions that
must be answered," and called for an immediate coroner's inquest.
The press similarly reported on the September 20, 2007 visit of two
Cabinet Ministers, including Minister of National Security, Derrick
Smith, to a community in Kingston where police had fatally shot two
people two days before, one of them a 19 year-old pregnant woman
killed by a stray police bullet. The day after the shootings,
Attorney General and Minister of Justice Dorothy Lightbourne issued
a press release to express her concern over the incident. At the
same time, she quoted the Prime Minister to reiterate the
government's commitment to establishing a "single, independent
authority to investigate instances of abuse by members of the
security forces."

Prosecuting Police
--------------


10. (U) JFJ and other NGOs are very critical of the low percentage
of police shootings that are prosecuted, and the even lower
percentage of convictions. Under the current system, after BSI
completes its investigation a report is sent to the Commissioner's
office and to the Police Public Complaints Authority (PPCA) which
reviews the case and submits cases of possible police misconduct to
the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Office. The DPP makes the
sole determination on whether to prosecute, and as the statistics
reveal, prosecutions of police very seldom happen in Jamaica. In
2006, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions reported that "From October 1999 to February
2006, not a single police officer was found guilty on charges
related to the fatal use of force, although more than 700 persons
had been killed by the police during these six years."

New DPP offers hope for improvement
--------------


11. (SBU) The DPP is appointed by the Public Service Commission and
the position is authorized specifically by the Constitution, he/she
thus can only be removed from office by way of retirement,

resignation or impeachment by a special tribunal if accused of
misbehavior. This office, like the commissioner, has a new
no-nonsense boss, Paula Llewellyn, who replaces the retiring Ken
Pantry. Pantry was much criticized by human rights NGOs and the
media for a lack of transparency and a tendency to take offence at
any question or challenge of any action by his office. Llewellyn
previously served as Senior Deputy Prosecutor under Pantry, but had
a reputation for taking on difficult and high profile cases,
including some involving members of the JCF and use of force. Thus,
there is hope that she will bring reforms and increase the levels of
professionalism and efficiency of the DPP.

Judiciary Inefficiencies
--------------


12. (U) Another major factor contributing to the pervasive impunity
surrounding extrajudicial killings by police has been the
ineffectiveness of the judicial system. A U.N Special Rapporteur in
2003 found that the criminal justice system did not possess the
institutional capacity to deal with difficult cases of extrajudicial
killings by police because, among other things, its proper
functioning was "marred by a number of institutional obstacles and
by a lack of resources." In particular, the Coroner's Court, the
court of first instance which most often handles homicides including
police shooting cases, was plagued by structural flaws including,
among others, lack of resources, inadequate use of technology,
failure to issue warrants for witnesses and failure of investigative
bodies to send the evidence to Court.

Only the names are changed
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13. (SBU) The local media is full of reports of police shootings,
that when read in succession become a repeating record in which only
the names of the victims change. Jamaicans have grown weary of
hearing the same, dubious "official story" repeated in case after
case. In almost all instances, the explanation given by police to
deflect prosecution is that a "shoot-out" occurred in which police
returned fire while defending themselves from armed individuals.
Guns are repeatedly "found" at the scene of the shooting,
purportedly belonging to the victim(s). In a recent case police
officers pursuing a run-away taxi shot and killed an 11 month old
baby and then fled the scene to avoid vigilante justice by a quickly
forming mob. In this case, too, the police claim the taxi driver
fired upon them first and that they were only returning fire in
self-defense; a claim unsubstantiated by witnesses. (Note:
Commissioner Lewin has suspended the officer responsible for the
shooting, and removed the other involved officers from front line
duties pending further investigation. End note.)

USG assistance with firearms training
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14. (U) On January 9, Commissioner Lewin signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Director of the Narcotics Affairs Section
(NAS) which will result in repair and upgrades to the Fire Arms
Training System (FATS) previously provided by NAS. As part of the
MOU, the Commissioner is committed to a rigorous training and
retraining program that will improve marksmanship and try to prevent
police from shooting innocent bystanders during enforcement
operations. At least 20% of the police force will be retrained
within the first year of the upgraded "shoot-don't shoot" system.

Conclusion
--------------


15. (U) The UN Special Rapporteur in 2006 noted that, from October
1999 to February 2006, not a single police officer was found guilty
on charges related to the fatal use of force, although more than 700
persons had been killed by the police during these six years. Not
until later in 2006 was a police officer found guilty of murder.
JFJ also notes that investigations of fatal police shootings by the
JCF's Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) were perfunctory and
inadequate, thus failing to meet basic international standards.
Their research confirms that there has been no progress in any of
the critical areas related to police investigations, namely,
preservation of crime scenes and collection of evidence; monitoring
of weapons and munitions; ballistics and forensics; as well as
witness protection.


16. (SBU) This predicament has led to PM Golding's initiative to
establish an independent civilian investigative commission.
Efforts are well underway in Parliament to create a single,
independent authority to investigate instances of abuse by members
of the security forces. The civilian inquiry commission proposed by
the Government would have several characteristics designed to ensure
its independence and address many of the issues discussed in the
report by JFJ and GWU law school. In general, crime scenes are

rarely secured or controlled by police agents, who do not receive
sufficient training for this purpose, thus leaving the scenes open
to members of the public and relatives to disrupt (Ref E). For this
reason, the specially trained civilian investigators in the
Government's proposed independent inquiry commission would have full
authority to immediately take over the crime scene of a fatal police
shooting from local police and the BSI, as well as to direct the
initial investigation.


17. (SBU) Coincidentally, Reneto Adams resigned/retired from the JCF
effective in August. Although hailed by many Jamaicans as an
anti-crime hero, he was strongly implicated in more than one major
extra-judicial killing since 2001. Most recent was the Kraal case
which was believed to have been politically motivated. Three people
were murdered by the police. Before that, in July 2001, Senior
Superintendent Adams led a raid in Denham Town (Kingston) in search
of firearms. Twenty five civilians were killed along with one
police officer and one soldier. At no time was Adams convicted, and
the previous Commissioner of Police did not have grounds to fire
him. So, he was given a desk job and essentially did nothing at JCF
headquarters during the past two years.


18. (SBU) Comment: The release of JFJ/GWU law school study
highlights a longstanding problem that needs serious attention. The
study supports Commissioner Lewin's efforts to transform the face of
policing in Jamaica. Hopefully it will help spur legislative action
that will facilitate planned changes. End Comment.

JOHNSON