BY DESMOND ALLEN Executive Editor -- Special Assignment allend@jamaicaobserver.com Tuesday, April 08, 2014
ANDREW Smalling, the trail-blazing Jones Town, Jamaica-born police chief of Lauderhill, Florida, nicknamed Jamaica Hill after its dominant population, is happy with the way crime is trending — downwards — in the third year of his tenure.
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| Smalling |
In the first two years after he swore on his 95-year-old grandmother's Bible to protect the city, Lauderhill has seen an impressive 14
per cent drop in crime, noticeably in violent crimes like murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault involving use of weapons.
Smalling, a well-read policeman who also lectures once a week in Criminal Justice at the Broward College in Florida, was sworn-in for the second time as chief of police in September 2011, 11 years after becoming the first black to be appointed top cop in the neighbouring city of Lauderdale Lakes.
The veteran cop of 28 years may have left Jamaica at age eight, with little memory of the sprawling slums of troubled inner-city Jones Town, Kingston, where he was born 52 years ago. But he is surrounded by Jamaicans in this teeming city of 70,000 people and must deal with the best and the worst of them. More importantly, he seems to be getting the better of the situation.
As he is wont to, Smalling came home last month to celebrate his birthday with his Jamaica-born wife, Pauline, who works as an administrative assistant in the Broward County Sheriff's Office and with the Broward Courthouse.
Smalling doesn't know if his spectacular success in the crime statistics is a suggestion that Jamaicans in Lauderhill want to see another Jamaican do well. But he is happy with the way things are going, he told the Jamaica Observer in an interview. more
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