EDITORIAL - The opportunity of Buckfield

The initial hurdle has been scaled, with the ruling by the director of public prosecutions (DPP), Ms Paula Llewellyn, that the policeman filmed shooting Ian Lloyd in Buckfield, St Ann, should be charged with murder.

We are surprised, though, that having accepted that the video - widely aired on television and social-networking sites - provided prima facie evidence against Sergeant Lloyd Kelly, Ms Llewellyn did not go further with Constable Vick-Roy Mowatt, who appeared to use his baton to beat a seemingly prone and weak victim.

In Mr Mowatt's case, the DPP recommended strong departmental action.

From this distance, the constable's behaviour appears to be wanton use of excessive force, well past the threshold for what should be considered criminal assault. Indeed, there are some who might argue that other policemen on the scene, in not constraining their colleagues, were so irresponsible as to be accessory to murder.

Hypothesis and speculation

All this, of course, is hypothesis and speculation that, ultimately, can only find resolution in a court of law, based on a rational and impartial system of justice.

Sgt Kelly is entitled to this process and must have it.

But up to the time of Ms Llewellyn's ruling being made public, the same thing was not certain for Ian Lloyd. And that, in large measure, is because of the distrust and low esteem in which many Jamaicans hold the constabulary. The negative perception of the police among the rational majority could only have been exacerbated by the images, as shown on television, of what transpired at Buckfield.

It speaks loudly, we think, that whoever shot that video of the Buckfield incident was confident to pass the images to the media, but has been reticent about handing the device to the police or making a formal statement.

We can hazard a more than reasonable guess why that person had not, up to yesterday, come forward: fear.

And as much as we hope that it was not the case, the behaviour is understandable and entirely predictable. Large swathes of the Jamaican population do not trust the police.

Mistrust

Incidents like the killing of the dancehall entertainer Kentucky Kid, after he had made recordings declaring his fear of being murdered by the police, reinforce this mistrust, the controversy surrounding that incident notwithstanding.

It is for that reason that in the immediate aftermath of the Buckfield incident, we urged the constabulary to do more than merely appeal to the videographer to provide the device that was used, but to guarantee his or her safety.

Mr Les Green, the assistant commissioner of police in charge of the Major Investigation Task Force, has now offered that guarantee - of sorts. We, however, wish to hear something far more forceful and bankable than what appears to have been an en passant promise of security by Mr Green.

Indeed, Buckfield can be a turning point for the constabulary - to demonstrate that its members can be tough on crime but be made to pay the penalty when they break the law, without citizen witnesses having to cower in fear if they tell the truth.

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