Unfair to label all police/military killings extrajudicial, says Chang
MONTEGO BAY, St James — Underscoring that not all fatal shootings by the security forces are of questionable nature, Security Minister Dr Horace Chang says it is unfair to classify fatal shootings collectively.
“If you look at the statistics, up to mid-year last year INDECOM (Independent Commission of Investigations) investigated some 600 cases and only five were prosecuted. So, I think it is inappropriate to put all fatal shootings together,” Dr Chang told reporters in Montego Bay last week.
He made reference to the fatal shooting of a Jamaican deported from Canada, Damion Hamilton, by cops hours after he ambushed a police team in Horizon Park, St Catherine, last year killing Corporal Dane Biggs and Constable Decardo Hylton on the spot. The leader of the police team, Superintendent Leon Clunis, was also shot. He died in hospital weeks later.
Police said they tracked Hamilton to Cooreville Gardens in St Andrew where he was killed in another shoot-out.
“There is something inappropriate when you take into consideration the killing of Mr Hamilton by the police when he had just killed three policemen. And they tracked him down and engaged him and he, in fact, fired at the police and that comes up as fatal shooting. So there needs to be a re-look at how you interpret these particular things,” Dr Chang argued.
He pointed to another case of the police intercepting a contract killer on a highway as he was en route to committing a murder.
“Professional killers will not go to the police easily because they have killed many, and when they go to jail they are unsafe. He engaged the police and he was killed. It just happened, that’s the reality,” Dr Chang said.
“One of the things you have to face up to is, if there are 4,000 shootings in the island, of which there are over 1,200 fatalities and the police increase vigilance... presence on the road, there are going to be increasing interventions between police and criminals with guns. That’s just the reality you have to deal with. My impression right now is that the police are doing their job more efficiently and if there is greater involvement, what I will be concerned about is cases where they are questionable,” he said.
Last Wednesday, deputy commissioner for INDECOM Hamish Campbell, during a virtual press briefing to discuss the commission’s fourth quarterly report for 2020, said that there has been a significant increase in the number of fatal shooting incidents involving Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) soldiers during joint operations with the police.
Campbell pointed out that though the number was small, the 12 incidents that involved soldiers represent a tripling of the numbers for the past three years, and was an indication of the outcomes of increased deployment of military personnel on the streets to support police operations.
“Where they are so deployed they have to be aware and cognisant of the rules and the necessity for the right of life, and the common courtesies of addressing citizens. It’s for the JDF to examine and lead and educate their own soldiers in how those matters should be dealt with,” Campbell said.
He noted that the JDF has a very different disciplinary code than the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), and is robust in its handling of complaints against soldiers.
“The JDF must continue with what they are required to do under Government’s deployment, but they must also be cognisant of how they should behave. More operation time on the street will almost inevitably result in an increase in complaints,” he said.
But Chang pointed out that solders are increasingly involved in joint operations with the police “because we have to get the numbers on the road, and where you have 4,000 shootings for the year you are going to have engagement with the police, especially out of the enhanced security area. So, if you are intercepting a gunman the chances are a military patrol could be involved”.