‘Let abusive cops pay’
Newly appointed Public Defender Earl Witter yesterday suggested that cops who are found guilty of assault and abuse of citizens should pay a part of the compensation awarded by the state to the victims.
Addressing what he said was the persistent abuse of citizens by the agency that has closest contact with the people, Witter, a veteran attorney, said maybe the time has come to dock the police’s pay to compensate for the offences.
“The way for the police to understand is to let them feel it in their pockets,” Witter said in his address to the Rotary Club of New Kingston breakfast at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.
“I urge the police to put in practice what they learned at training school,” he said, adding that the duty of the police was to protect and serve, not to abuse.
While admitting that there were serious problems faced by the police during the course of their duties, he reminded cops that they chose the profession.
“If you can’t do the job, go find something else to do,” advised Witter. “Do not take out your problems on the public.”
Witter was appointed six weeks ago to the post created in 2000 to protect and enforce the rights of citizens. He succeeded Howard Hamilton, the first person to hold the job.
Yesterday, he indicated that his office would be placing immediate attention on the health and security sectors.
“My first priority is health and then security,” he told the Rotarians.
In admonishing the health sector, Witter said that the Kingston Public Hospital, once the premier hospital in the island, had now been infested by vermin “with reports of flies in the operating theatre and cockroaches in the air-conditioning ducts”.
“A catalytic event was the recent deaths of these two babies in public hospitals,” Witter said.
Last month, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Lloyd Goldson drew public attention to the death of an unborn baby at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Kingston after vital surgery on the baby’s mother had to be cancelled four times because of a faulty autoclave device used to sterilise surgical equipment.
Dr Goldson’s revelation led to senior doctors exposing the awful conditions at the hospital, including contamination of the operating theatre by roaches and bird droppings, inconsistencies of medical supplies and the lack of essential equipment, including ventilators for critically ill patients.
Yesterday, in an interview following his address, Witter said, “It may be that the regional approach to health was a bad idea in the first place”.
Earlier, Witter promised non-partisan conduct of the business at the Public Defender’s office, saying that there was a new paradigm in which he intended to work.
“I am no ombudsman, my office is that of public defender,” Witter emphasised. “We intend to succeed because Parliament, in imposing this mandate, must be taken not to be hypocritical. We will be non-partisan in our approach.”
fosterp@jamaicaobserver.com