I recently reread Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad, edited by Elizabeth Nunez and Jennifer Sparrow (2006). Several wrenching themes are explored in the collection. Still, two stories by Jamaicans resonated with me given a current issue facing Jamaicans –police fatal shootings of civilians. Indeed, as a member of an advocates group, I have had to address this issue on local media. The two stories “Blood” by Pamela Mordecai and “First Born” by Alecia McKenzie were written in the 1980s, when police killings of civilians were a prominent feature of policing in Jamaica. Here’s an excerpt from “First Born”:
Theresa was seeing Dwayne, seeing the police dragging him to their car, taking him to the station. Seeing them beating him, interrogating him about something that had happened the night before, and growing mad at his response that he had been sleeping. She saw the batons and the gun butts raining down until Dwayne lay lifeless on the ground. She saw them dumping his body on a pile of garbage. (218-19)
Every year since 2019, the number of shooting fatalities resulting from the actions of the Jamaican security forces has been on the increase. As at March 24, 2025, 79 police shooting fatalities have been reported, with 20 of those in March – roughly one civilian killed per day in this month. The latest reported fatality is of an alleged gangster. (Trinidad also has similar concerns with increased fatal shootings by their security forces.)
We can drill down by looking at the statistics provided by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), “a Commission of Parliament to undertake investigations concerning actions by members of the Security Forces and others agents of the State that result in death or injury to persons or the abuse of the rights of persons”:
In INDECOM’s Second Quarterly report 2024, the Commissioner noted that in 2023, the fatalities reached 155 – a 16% increase on 2022. In 2022, one hundred & thirty-four (134) people were shot and killed – a 6% increase over 2021, where 127 persons were shot and killed. In 2024, the number was 189. As the INDECOM Commissioner predicted, the 2024 figures promised to exceed those of 2023. Indeed, there was a 22 % increase over the 2023 figure. (These figures do not include the other fatalities that arise in custody or from car accidents associated with the police, etc.)
A Disturbing Response
One of the most disturbing responses to this increase in fatal shootings by the police came from the Police Commissioner. He was responding to a well-known human rights group, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), who raised concerns with the increases. The Police Commissioner was most dismissive of the concerns raised, even labelling JFJ as “misguided”, “irresponsible” and about “seeking relevance”. JFJ was subjected to a slew of invective and even veiled threats from members of the public, many of whom support police killing of dangerous criminals. This situation with JFJ called to mind Alecia McKenzie’s “First Born”, where, Dwayne, the eponymous character, was killed by the police as detailed in the previous quote.
The backstory is that Dwayne had joined a church youth group that held demonstrations against “government corruption and the like”. Their latest campaign had been against police “extrajudicial killings”. Undoubtedly, McKenzie intends the reader to connect Dwayne’s murder with his campaigning. It is but a few steps from that story to a critique of the response from the Police Commissioner, which can have a chilling effect on advocacy, even placing the lives of advocates in peril. His response indicated a fundamental misunderstanding of the work of civil society groups which is to hold the government and its agents to account in the preservation of human rights for all, even alleged criminals. The presence and success of INDECOM does not vitiate the work of such groups.
At the same time, this trend has to be understood against the backdrop of the high levels of violence in Jamaica – police are exposed daily to high levels of criminal gun violence. Police are very often called upon to defend themselves and civilians up to and including the use of deadly force.
Taking Pause and Questioning
The trend of increasing police killings should cause us to pause and ask a question or two: Are the killings necessary, proportionate, reasonable and accountable? Why do so many police operations end in fatalities? Is there a role for the use of less lethal interventions? How do police engagements with citizens maintain and preserve the value of their lives and their right to life?
Police use of force is legitimate when it is necessary to perform their duty and is used in a lawful way. This includes actions to prevent crime, make arrests, or defend themselves or others. However, there are limits to how much force can be used, and it cannot be used in a discriminatory, extrajudicial or punitive way.
How should force be used?
It should be proportionate to the objective being achieved. Should the same level of force be used to apprehend or arrest a suspect as in self-defence? Force should be used with heightened care and precaution for people who are vulnerable to its effects. As much as possible, civilians should be warned and protected. Should operational areas not be better cordoned off and operations more targeted and coordinated? What strategies should be deployed to reduced civilian fatalities, especially innocent bystanders?
Despite what many Jamaicans believe, not all those killed by police are gunmen or criminals as is alleged; women and children and other innocent bystanders have been killed. People with mental health challenges armed with stone or knife have been fatally wounded by police. Also in that group are so-called gunmen but sometimes no guns have been found at the scene. INDECOM reporting shows that police accounts of shootings are sometimes contradicted by footage from the Jamaica Eye surveillance system and private citizen’s cameras.
A brief closing
Police mount operations regularly to apprehend wanted men as women are rarely directly involved in such confrontations, and in those operations there have been increases in fatalities for non-involved civilians. Police operations should be safe operations. Operations to apprehend are successful when they capture the felons; death in the circumstances has to be counted a failure. Police planning and operations should deploy tactics that ensures that this happens. INDECOM has been singing a refrain over the last 10-15 years about the need for body worn cameras. We join in supporting that call, for such technology can assist with transparency and accountability in police-civilian engagements, fatal or otherwise. Continued training and deployment in non-lethal methods of subduing civilians is also important. Tactics for protecting civilians while these operations are in progress should be deployed. Such engagements should be reported on truthfully and investigated effectively, especially if they result in injury or death.