Kristen Gyles | To serve, protect or disrespect?

“We serve, we protect, we reassure with courtesy, integrity and proper respect for the rights of all.” That’s the mission for the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), so what on earth is going on? With numerous stable–headed officers who are trying to fulfil this mission, some have gone ‘mad, sick, head nuh good’. Must be COVID-19 stress. Some police officers are always being disrespected, even when no one is disrespecting them, and so they respond with disrespect. Everything constitutes disrespect when dealing with a bruised ego. It is unclear whether it is that persons with very low self-concepts are choosing to enter the police force, or that the police force is somehow managing to crush the self-image of its existing members.

Late last month, a woman went to the Four Paths Police Station in Clarendon to receive her daughter, Nzinga King, who was to be released from police custody. The only issue was that she could barely recognise her daughter because her locs had been chopped off. A policewoman with a clearly very questionable concept of herself forcibly trimmed the young lady’s hair for no other reason than to show her that she was the reigning bull in the pen, and so she debased herself to this asinine and animal-like behaviour.

Why the young lady was arrested in the first instance is cause enough for protest. Apparently, a man in whom the police had an interest, took refuge in a taxi in which Nzinga was seated. One police officer had the bright idea of pepper spraying the vehicle in order to get the man out. Obviously, the other vehicular passengers were not amused. Apparently, Nzinga’s supposed ‘disrespect’ was the rationale for why she needed to have been arrested. However, the police would have had a hard time arresting an ordinary and clearly innocent citizen on the grounds of ‘disrespect’, and so they spun some ‘nonsense argument’ to her about her having been in breach of COVID-19 protocols – since she had removed her mask in order to breath properly, in light of the fumes they had exposed her to.

NOT DISRESPECT

What I’m about to say may come as a shocker to some. Calling a police officer out on inappropriate behaviour is NOT disrespect. Telling a police officer what they are permitted or not permitted to do under the law is NOT disrespect. Also, getting upset because of disrespect meted out to you by a police officer is also NOT disrespect.

Because this inept police team was unable to understand and accept this, they went to an unreasonable extreme just to make clowns of themselves. The clown show didn’t end there, though. The offending policewoman, while trimming Nzinga’s hair, ‘explained’ herself by citing a supposed suicide risk that her hair caused, which necessitated the trimming.

Of the numerous women who have passed through the custody of the Jamaican police, I wonder how many were sporting long hair. Somehow, I have never heard of a non-Rastafarian being trimmed. Strange. What is even more ridiculous about this idea of her hair posing a suicide risk is that by trimming this woman’s hair, they have eaten away at her sense of self-identity and have traumatised her. If she was ever suicidal before, they certainly didn’t help.

What makes this particular case unique is that there was something besides just a power-hungry quest to show who’s boss, that clearly motivated the policewoman – a disdainful attitude towards Rastafarians. This is nothing unique to the police force, but something a lot more prevalent than we would like to admit. Nevertheless, many ordinary people walk around with their prejudices, unable to materialise their pathetic biases into substantive actions. The police, on the other hand, with all the scope and authority with which to do as they please, can.

And so, we could smile and quietly bury this issue under the rubbish heap and move on with our lives if this was an isolated case of one mad policewoman – but it’s not. The police force seems to consistently be finding itself in situations like these, where officers go overboard just to prove their invincibility.

INSULT THE INTELLIGENCE

Last week, a man had himself recorded, hurling profane insults at the prime minister over tighter restrictions he had imposed under the Disaster Risk Management Act, only to be arrested shortly thereafter. This was not the first time a questionable arrest of this nature was made. This time, however, where silence would have perhaps been golden, the JCF chose to insult the intelligence of Jamaicans by issuing a statement to suggest that the young man was actually not arrested for his disrespect but for something else. (Sounds familiar?)

This was, of course, after the police released a video of the man being coaxed into issuing an apology of some sort. It took widespread condemnation for the JCF to give consideration to how inappropriate its actions were. This condemnation failed to come from where it mattered most.

Our political representatives are usually very verbose and expressive, but so many have held their peace on this one. Just like they have held their peace in the case of Nzinga King, and just like they continue to hold their peace on similar issues where a clear message needs to be sent.

The silence is, and has been, in and of itself a message, and the offending JCF personnel have heard it loud and clear. Until a different and equally clear message that addresses the overstepping of boundaries by police officers is sent, nothing will change. But the first question to ask is: How many of us want change, anyway?

Kristen Gyles is a graduate student at The University of the West Indies, Mona. Email feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com.