Mobile Reserve painted as bad boys of force

BIRTHED IN the year Jamaica got independence as a strike force to deal with riots and public disorder, the Mobile Reserve, which has been under the microscope of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) for years, is taking its last breath as the Government moves to pull the plug on the controversial 57-year-old police unit.

This is part of the Holness administration’s efforts to overhaul the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Yesterday, National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang announced that Assistant Commissioner of Police Warren Clarke has been given the task of winding up the Mobile Reserve and develop a framework for a “new, vetted, specialised operations organisation, properly trained and equipped to respond to current and future threats”.

Career senior cop Terrence Bent, who is in charge of Mobile Reserve, was yesterday sent on leave to facilitate investigations at the unit.

Responding to the policy move to wind up the elite unit, Opposition Spokesman on National Security Fitz Jackson questioned why Chang had not made this announcement in his recent contribution to the Sectoral Debate. He argued that it was not “unreasonable to draw the inference that this latest announcement is a knee-jerk reaction being presented as a decision-making process in the command structure of the Jamaica Constabulary Force”.

DEADLY GUNFIGHT

The dramatic events last Saturday night that saw three policemen assigned to Mobile Reserve allegedly killing a St Catherine businessman and subsequently pursued by an offduty cop in a high-speed chase and blazing gun battle, appear to be the tipping point for the unit that came in for criticism in the 2015-16 commission of enquiry into the operation by the security forces in Tivoli Gardens. The Sir David Simmons-chaired enquiry said that elements of the Mobile Reserve featured prominently among those accused of extrajudicial killings. The operation left 68 civilians and one soldier dead.

Sunday’s bloody drama involving a so-called hero cop and three alleged rogue policemen has left one lawman, Rohan Williams, dead; one in custody, yet to be identified; and another still at large. A civilian, Kevron Burrell, was also shot dead.

On Thursday, the on-the-run cop, Kirk Frazer, claimed in a TVJ interview that he and his Mobile Reserve colleagues were chasing the killers of Daley but were attacked by the off-duty cop and other men.

“For some time, INDECOM has been making complaints about how Mobile Reserve operates and, indeed, the poor operational management of Mobile Reserve was a feature of the Tivoli Commission of