- Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
Williams
Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
IF EVER there was a face suited for the word nonchalance in a picture dictionary, it is Carl Williams'. For someone who one week before had been promoted to the lofty position of Assistant Commissioner of Police, there is little fanfare about Williams, a laid-back personality who could easily pass for a Sunday school teacher.
Williams was one of four persons appointed to the post of ACP. At 40, the accessible head of the Narcotics Division is the youngest of the quartet but with over 20 years service in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) under his belt, Williams is no baby. As several of his staff take a break downstairs at the Narcotics Division headquarters, either playing dominoes or watching the England/Portugal Euro 2004 football match, Williams mulls over paperwork and mans the phones in his office. Despite his relative youth, he says he was not surprised when Commissioner Francis Forbes named him as one of his deputies.
"I would have made ACP if I continued to serve and serve well, which I think I was doing. I was a Senior Superintendent for eight years and paid my dues, not just here at Narcotics, so it wasn't really a surprise," he told The Sunday Gleaner. A tall man with a rolling voice, Williams wears a poker face even when he smiles. He doesn't have the in-your-face profile of hardened street cops like Reneto Adams or Donald Pusey, but Williams has been just as effective in his second tenure at the Narcotics Division, which has come into its own in the past three years by seizing tons of illegal contraband and arresting several alleged drug lords.
Williams points to teamwork as a key factor in the 180-man Narcotics Division's success. He says there is improved collaboration between it, other divisions within the JCF and the Jamaica Defence Force. The strengthening of ties with overseas agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in the United States, he added, has helped make his unit more professional.
PARTNERSHIPS
These partnerships have resulted in the capture and in some cases, extradition, of some well-known foreign and Jamaican nationals who have reportedly capitalised on Jamaica's location as a major trans-shipment port for illegal drugs. So far this year, seven Jamaicans have been arrested and charged for their alleged involvement in drug-running. Promises by the police to nab the so-called 'Mr. Big' in narcotic operations seemed hollow, but Williams defends their wait-and-see approach.
"It was not going to take a two days or two months to catch them, it took investigations over years to catch so-called big fish, charge them, take them into custody and present a proper case before the local court or another jurisdiction," he explained. "What people have to realise is that the international drug trade is international in name and scope."
Williams estimates the value of the illegal drugs his team seized during the past four years at "billions of US dollars". With so much at stake, he admits the lure of money can sway even the most committed lawman; in July 2003, two policemen were arrested at the Tinson Pen Aerodrome where they were allegedly among eight persons loading a plane with cocaine. The men were eventually cleared of drug trafficking charges in January, when the court ruled that prosecutors made procedural errors in their case.
POLICE INVOLVEMENT
"We have come across police involved in drugs from time to time and it is a problem," he said. "I'm not going to say the issue of delinquency has totally disappeared because to be honest we are not going to get rid of it overnight."
Carl Williams says he has trod the straight-and-narrow path since he joined the JCF in 1983, fresh out of central Jamaica.
He started out at the Special Branch in Kingston, staying there for six years before leaving with the rank of sergeant; he was then placed in charge of precints in Islington, St. Mary, then Bridgeport in Portmore when he was promoted to Inspector. Williams was a founding member of the elite Special Anti-Crime Unit in 1993. He left there after 10 months for a second stint at Special Branch then Central Police Station; in 1996, he began a year-long stint at the Narcotics Division, returning there after three years to head the anti-narco troupe.
Williams heads overseas in September for a "period of time" to read for a degree in criminal justice. He won't be back at the Narcotics Division when he returns, but says his successor will inherit a strong unit. "They are the people who bleach at night, who sleep at airstrips and in bushes and mangroves," said Williams. "It is not all about me, it is more about them."
