By Glenroy Sinclair, Staff Reporter
Forbes
THE THREAT of disciplinary action now hangs over the head of Senior Superintendent of Police Reneto Adams, for comments he made during an interview on Power 106 FM on Monday, in which he verbally attacked the Police High Command.
In fact, Adams will be suspended after he and five rank and file members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) are formally charged today, in connection with the May 7, 2003 killing of four persons in Kraal, north central Clarendon.
The commissioner said Adams' comments had brought the more than 100-year-old Jamaica Constabulary Force to a "new low".
"The matter is being investigated expeditiously and we are now collecting evidence," said Police Commissioner Francis Forbes.
Speaking with senior journalists yesterday morning at his Old Hope Road, St. Andrew office, Commissioner Forbes stressed that if what he heard was correct, then it was a serious breach of discipline.
"The comments Mr. Adams made were inappropriate," Forbes said.
Mr. Adams' comments come less than two months after Commissioner Forbes had written to him about making such public statements, and one week after a second correspondence warned him about his scorching comments to the press during a previous interview.
ADVISED TO WEIGH WORDS
According to the commissioner's letter, dated November 7, 2002, Mr. Adams was not being banned from speaking to the media or at any public forum. However, he advised him to weigh his words carefully so that the end result "is not justifiable negative criticism of the organisation and lost public support from critical stakeholders..."
Mr. Adams responded to the Commissioner's letter on July 11, 2002 stating that he "... accepted all these observations and from now on my comments to the media will be drastically cut or none at all."
During the radio interview on Monday, Adams, in pointing to the over 350 reported cases of homicides since January and the influx of illegal guns and money laundering, said that is where the Police High Command should direct its investigative skills.
The tough-talking SSP was responding to the content of a letter addressed to him by the Police High Command, warning him that it would be a breach of Section 69 of the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act, if he was caught inciting demonstrators when he appears before the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston today.
Mr. Adams and five rank and file officers have been charged with four counts of murder for the controversial shooting of Matthew James; Lewena Thompson, alias 'Ferris'; Angella Richards, alias 'Angie' and Kirk Gordon, alias 'Renegade'. The four were killed in Kraal, Clarendon, on May 7, last year.
Commissioner Forbes said police intelligence had revealed that a well-known Kingston don was approached to assist in drumming up support for the lawmen appearing in court today.
But SSP Adams denied approaching any don or being involved in any moves to incite demonstrators.
The Commissioner further said that an appropriate plan had been put in place to properly protect the precincts of the Supreme Court.
