Earlier this week, Denham Town erupted over a police shooting during which three men were shot dead. Residents there took to the streets protesting the shootings.

This week's incident and others similar to it suggest that the Jamaican police, for whatever reason, have, over the years, become increasingly trigger-happy. It's a shoot-first-ask-questions-later philosophy that has got out of hand.

Of course, there have been instances when the protesters are flat -out lying. And maybe this week's incident was one of those. We all know that sometimes an area leader will demand a demonstration when his 'soldiers' are killed, and the residents are too fearful to deny his wishes.

When I reported on crime years ago, there were several times when I witnessed what I believed to be legitimate shootings only for there to be demonstrations, tyre burnings, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Still, even if you subtract these situations, which I believe could be as high as 50 per cent, from the numbers of people shot by police each year, you will find that the numbers are way too high. It has got to a point now where it has become a crude joke in my household.

My wife, who was also a crime reporter early in her journalism career, and I would be watching a movie or television show and there is a scene in which cops are chasing bad guys. Often, the script calls for the police to shout "Stop. this is the police!" The bad guys would just keep running and the cops would keep chasing until either the bad guys get away, or whatever the script calls for.

Well-placed bursts

Whenever this happens, one of us would always quip that if that was Jamaica in real life, that chase would have ended from the get-go, because Jamaican cops ain't chasing anybody shouting for them to stop. A few well-placed bursts from an M-16 and it would be all over.

The irony of this whole situation is that while the shoot-first attitude has caused the cops to earn the ire of the Jamaican populace, it has earned them a 'worthwhile' reputation elsewhere in the Caribbean. I know for a fact that if we exported our police to other countries in the region, their crime problems would disappear. Just ask the citizens of Basseterre in St. Kitts.

We had flown in to that island on March 23, to catch the ICC World Cup match between Australia and South Africa the next day. While doing the touristy thing - you know, the shopping and walking around aimlessly taking in the town - we noticed that there were some Jamaican policemen standing around at strategic points keeping a close eye out for those who would put a damper on the whole world cup experience.

We were later told by several people that since the Jamaican police had arrived,all the criminals seemed to have disappeared. As one woman put it: "Boy, the criminal dem gone hide cause dem Jamaican police will shoot you, you know! Dem don't joke."

So, I guess there are advantages to having that kind of reputation and having it precede you going into neutral territory. But, at home it only makes the police villains. Maybe what they need is higher levels of training, training that will condition a policeman to shoot only when he needs to and not when he wants to.

Perhaps that is what they need if the police are to re-establish themselves as men and women who are there to 'Serve, Protect, and Reassure' the population instead of people who are sure to shoot us.

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