One of the dead women, who was crossing from one side of her bed to the other, had most of her skull ripped off by a soldier's bullet fired from the top of a high rise building across the road. Another, who went to buy salt in the Tivoli Gardens square was returning home when she was shot by soldiers positioned at the Tivoli Gardens High School some 100 yards away. As her son went to her rescue, he, too, was shot at by the same soldiers. Tony Abrahams and I came under gunfire from that same area, two mornings later, as I showed him around. The bullet holes on the wall behind us remain as testimony. The third woman was walking back to her apartment when she, too, was shot by soldiers stationed upstairs a building in the Coronation Market, 150 yards away, in line of sight. The little boy was jumping up in his bed joyfully on the upper floor of his home with his little friends when his skull was ripped open.

None of these incidents was in keeping with the terms of engagement printed on a small card for required reference and guidance of members of the Jamaica Defence Force. Yet, no report was ever issued on action taken by the military authorities to deal with the few soldiers stationed, at the time, at the specific locations from which the shots were fired.

Terrorist attack

On July 7-10, 2001, another attack was staged, led this time by Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and a detachment of hand-picked policemen, with soldiers added later, totalling 200. They were in search of guns at 4 o'clock Saturday morning, July 7. According to Adams, they found one small revolver "buried at the Golden Age Home" in Denham Town, which denied that any police team had entered the premises. As unlikely as this may have been, what transpired after was that the other hand-picked police detachments, waiting in the wings at the Hannah Town Police Station, surged into the area with a barrage of shots, which they said was in reply to gunfire at 4 a.m. This was in Denham Town not Tivoli Gardens. Adams and his men then positioned themselves against a wall on Spanish Town Road where they said they were under attack. Yet, not one bullet hole was found on the wall behind them. I repeat, not one, and the wall remains the same today, as then, for all to see.

Next, they went to the same two- storey, white building in Coronation Market from which deadly fire had killed one of the women in 1997. Some two thousand rounds of ammunition were discharged from that position, including those by Adams who hung his weapon outside the sand- bagged portal of the two-storey building and fired aimlessly, as seen on television. Strangely, there were three bullet holes to be seen on the huge white wall of the building which Adams said was the target of gunmen. On the other hand, several dozen bullet holes were seen on the walls of the building opposite the location where Adams was stationed representing shots fired by the security forces at buildings on the edge of the Tivoli community.

The result was 25 dead persons, shot by the security forces including:

Some of the dead had to remain rotting on the streets for four days, providing meals for dogs as any attempt to remove them was met by gunfire from the security forces.

The latest such attack occurred Sunday, January 13, in Tivoli Gardens, again, where police say that they went in search of a notorious wanted man from Montego Bay, hiding in the area. The team of police and soldiers did not find the wanted man. But they saw five boys/men running into a house as the security forces approached with gunfire. The house was occupied by an old woman, a young girl and a baby, all of whom were downstairs. The boys/men took refuge in a room upstairs where they huddled. The security team that entered the room had other ways to deal with the situation: call on the boys/men to come out with their hands in the air and if they did not respond, flush them out with tear gas, at which point they could be apprehended. But that option was not taken.

Responsibility

The Constabulary Force Act gives the police the power to operate without any direction from the Minister, and rightfully so. But, with every right there is a corresponding responsibility. Accordingly, the responsibility to account for what occurred lies with the Commissioner who must now answer the following questions to the public and not remain silent in grim satisfaction of a "job well done".

1. Were any of the boys/men who were killed, wanted men?

2. Were any of them previously on a charge of committing a "gun" offence?

3. Were any of them ever convicted on a "gun" charge?

4. Did the operation by the soldiers under his charge in this operation follow the directives of the Terms of Engagement issued for members of the Jamaica Defence Force?

5. Does the police force have any corresponding directive for operations similar to these terms of engagement? If so, what requirements are laid down for such operations and were they followed? If not, will such procedures be established by the police force?

6. What is the record of Tivoli Gardens in gun crimes compared to other inner-city communities in Kingston in recent years?

Expressed bias

The security forces have a right to go where they want and they have been active in Tivoli on dozens of occasions without any problems. But, the new Commissioner, notwithstanding his expressed bias against Tivoli Gardens, has a duty to see that operations carried out by the security forces under the authority of the police are not like the occurrences of 1997 and 2001, or other such events elsewhere in Jamaica, using the same terror tactics against poor and innocent people.

The primary mission of the security team in Tivoli on that Sunday was to capture a notorious multiple killer. I am sorry that they did not succeed, but the failure of their primary mission does not given them the right to pursue a secondary mission.

In the absence of acceptable answers to the public on the questions above, the conclusion could be drawn that there exists in the Jamaica Constabulary Force killer police who are irretrievably steeped in the deadly practice of state terrorism.