AdamsSENIOR SUPT. RENETO Adams, the controversial head of the Crime Management Unit, on Sunday sought to clear the air on several statements he made recently, including one in which he described as "semantics", the presumption of a person's innocence until proven guilty, as guaranteed by the Constitution.
Speaking on CVM-TV's current affairs programme Impact, hosted by Cliff Hughes, SSP Adams said several persons in the society had been misinterpreting the statement he made last week on The Breakfast Club on Hot 102.
In the wake of SSP Adams's statement, talk shows have been flooded with calls by persons expressing their annoyance at it. In a statement late last week, Delroy Chuck, the Jamaica Labour Party's spokesperson on Justice, called on the Government and the Police Commissioner to dissociate themselves from SSP Adams's statements.
On Sunday SSP Adams backtracked.
SEMANTICS
"I'm a thousand per cent in agreement with the notion that a man must be presumed innocent until he is found guilty," he said. "But the part I think the journalists and some members of the society are missing is that I have given some prudent examples as to why I cannot come to terms with the notion when we have treated certain some [persons] as we have done."
Underscoring his point, SSP Adams referred to a man who had been imprisoned for 29 years without being charged and without a trial. "You are telling me that when you go to his family and say to them that your father, your husband, your brother was not guilty. I am saying that expression is semantics as it relates to that example I just gave," SSP Adams said.
But Mr. Hughes quickly said the case the Senior Superintendent cited was rare. But SSP Adams replied that it was "one is too many".
Drawing another example where he said the presumption of innocence is "semantics", SSP Adams said even when someone has been acquitted of a criminal charge, the society ostracizes that person, frequently causing that person to lose his or her job or even the disruption of that person's family or social life.
Meanwhile, the Senior Superintendent, who said he's got the backing of the rank and file members of the constabulary since the statement, said the Police Commissioner has not called him to explain his controversial uttering.
"I know my Commissioner to be a highly-trained, intelligent man," he said. "He has not said anything to me. I have come to the conclusion he has critically made his own analysis of those statement and he might have come to the conclusion there is nothing there to reprimand me for."
During the programme, SSP Adams was also questioned about his statement that human rights groups are set up to protect criminals. In response, he said local human rights groups have given the impression the police have no rights.
"If you have declared your group to be guardians of human rights, it must be across the board. You should not allow me or the public to assume that your actions are skewed towards protecting the criminals. I'm saying that if I have identified or interpreted that in your action, then you should call yourself the criminal rights group," he said.
"If you are a human rights group, when Detective Corporal Graham was slaughtered in the streets in Constant Spring you would have come out forcefully and vociferously, just as you have come out about Braeton. I have not heard that. So you have inculcated in my mind that you are seeking to protect the rights of the criminal suspects more than other persons."
Responding to SSP Adams' comment, political commentator and columnist Dr. D.K. Duncan, who was a guest on the programme, sought to correct the Senior Superindent's view of human rights groups, suggesting that such groups don't lobby against every ill in a society.
"Human rights group are not set up to intervene in a situation in a country of citizens versus citizens, that's the role of the State - that's your (police) duty. When a citizen gets killed the police intervene. If a policeman gets killed by a civilian, the police intervene," he said.
"If an agent of the State appears to have committed extra-judicial killings in the minds of the people, the State agent (police) is going to investigate itself. This is where human rights groups come in. They are not there to go to everybody's beck and call."
