BY PAUL HENRY Co-ordinator -- Crime/Court Desk henryp@jamaicaobserver.com Thursday, May 28, 2015
DEPUTY Commissioner of Police Glemore Hinds said yesterday that the wider society is to be blamed for the West Kingston community of Tivoli Gardens becoming an enclave controlled by criminal elements who operated it as a country unto itself.
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| Glenmore Hinds |
"As a country, most of us in this room — I think the only person who can claim exception is Sir David Simmons -- are a part of the problem, including the security forces," said Hinds during his second day of evidence at the Tivoli Enquiry being held at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.
Simmons is the chairman of the commission looking into the circumstances of the May 2010 operation to apprehend Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who was then the don of Tivoli Gardens. More than 70 people, including a Jamaica Defence Force soldier, died in the operation.
Hinds made the commentary while being questioned by Queen's Counsel Garth McBean (attorney for the commission) as to his assessment of the police's conduct in Tivoli during the attempt to nab Coke, who slipped the dragnet.
"We allowed the gang propaganda to hold sway over these citizens. ...[No] police operation was [ever] called an operation; they were called an incursion or an attack or an invasion. What we would have done is cemented in the subconscious of these citizens that they were not part of Jamaica, they must be left to their own vices because this society sees them as off-limit," Hinds said in explaining how Jamaica had failed Tivoli Gardens.
"What we have allowed is for them to establish their own system of governance, and anything done to change that is never embraced. That is why, for example, Mr Coke was embraced in civil society... the message you send to citizens is: If higher-up accepts this man, why shouldn't we 'lower-down' embrace him? We have sent mixed signals, complicated signals which have allowed these persons to remain," DCP Hinds reasoned. more
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