No help from the police
Dear Editor,
About 8:45 am, on March 28, I called the Black River Police Station to report a nuisance motorcyclist in my community who has been causing disturbance and distress to the residents, including the elderly.
For the past few days, morning and evening, a young man who lives close to me has been speeding along our streets and revving the motorcycle with its loud and annoying sounds, which is affecting residents with migraine.
I have no problem if this young man and others want to break their necks and lose their limbs from their reckless conduct. Many of them are careless and have no respect for their own lives, let alone the lives of others. But their careless actions shouldn’t be allowed to affect other residents.
I requested to speak with the supervisor on duty at the station and I was transferred to a corporal who asked for my name, which I provided, following which he kept asking me where I was from. His attitude was offensive and he sounded unpleasant.
Now I called the police to report a nuisance motorcyclist and this officer of the law is going to ask me repeatedly where I’m from as if it was a prerequisite for me to lodge my complaint, or for him to address my complaint with urgency. I could not fathom how where I am from was relevant to the matter at hand and why it was so important. Because of his discourtesy I disconnected the call. My complaint was therefore not lodged, thereby furthering the inconvenience.
Why are they more interested in where a complainant is located than in the matter being complained about? Don’t the members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) know that a citizen complainant is not obligated to provide personal information, especially over the phone, when complaints are being made because of the risks associated? Unless a complainant is willing to risk disclosing personal information, then no police personnel should be asking personal information of citizens in furtherance of investigating a complaint of lawlessness and disorder. It should be enough for a complainant to just simply provide information to the police for them to investigate and act on.
What is alarming is that, although I took the matters of the nuisance in my community and the discourtesy to the assistant commissioner of police who is in charge of my area, as well as copied it to the divisional commander, on the same day, there appears to have been no action taken. The young man is still causing a nuisance to us in the community with the loud revving and speeding along our streets like he is on Dover Raceway.
It should also be noted that the day after I made my complaint in writing to the senior officers I also wrote to Commissioner Antony Anderson. He has not had the courtesy of acknowledging same.
So, as far as we the residents are concerned, no corrective action has been taken by the senior officers. I am left to wonder whether there are some members of the JCF who are complicit in the mayhem and disorder in this country.
Issues like these, when ignored, blossom into the uncontrollable society that obtains. No wonder so many citizens have so much disdain for the police.
Dujon Russell
dujon.russell@yahoo.com