THE BEATING of a man and his wife by a group of police, including senior officers in Half-Way Tree, St. Andrew, on Wednesday, is another disgraceful episode, which the Jamaica Constabulary Force will not easily live down.
However, much the couple, and in particular the woman, Mrs. Margaret Berry, might have been misbehaving and resisting arrest as the police later claimed, that the police were unable to bring order to the situation without resorting to the use of batons, serves only to highlight the incompetence and disrespect about which the public often complains.
Too often in confrontations with the public, the police's reaction is to resort to the use of excessive force or firepower. Cynics might be forgiven for thinking that the only thing that prevented guns being brought into play on this occasion was the presence of scores of
eyewitnesses.
Wednesday's episode in full view of the public suggests something fundamentally wrong with the way the police see themselves and the public with whom they deal. It boils down to a lack of respect.
It is taken as given that in the normal course of their work, the police will sometimes encounter resistance in various forms from people attempting to flee, to fisticuffs and riots. The police have been trained to deal with high levels of stress and to respond to the unpredictable. They should be able to assume authority in difficult situations without beating, pepper-spraying and shooting people as a matter of course.
It may well be that the patience of some of the policemen on duty on Wednesday had worn thin in their frequent attempts to clear the Half-Way Tree transportation hub of illegal taxis. Many of the drivers of these vehicles are notoriously undisciplined and should be locked up for endangering the lives of other motorists and pedestrians. But, it is precisely in these difficult circumstances that well-thinking and law-abiding citizens expect the police to keep a cool head and bring order to chaos.
Wednesday's incident calls to mind the stampede just outside the National Stadium on April 23 reportedly triggered by a skirmish among carnival revellers and exacerbated by plain-clothes policemen firing gunshots into the air.
These actions suggest that too many of our policemen are not thinking and the leadership of the Jamaica Constabulary Force needs to go back to the drawing board to have their charges learn how best to handle difficult crowd control situations.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
