Jamaica: "No big guns for rookie cops"

[cuchulainn]

from the Jamaica Observer

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news...500_41903_OBS_NO_BIG_GUNS_FOR_ROOKIE_COPS.asp

No big guns for rookie cops
14 cops start training in firearm instructions
Observer Reporter
Tuesday, April 01, 2003

THE police will strictly enforce a policy against the issuing of high-powered weapons to cops who have no specialist training in their use, according to the assistant commissioner of police in charge of training, Delworth Heath.

Moreover, Heath told the Observer yesterday, new police officers will not be exposed to high-powered weapons until after they have completed their two-year probation.

"The use of high-powered weapons will be cut down in general training as recruits should not be exposed to high-powered weapons," Heath said. "We will also narrow down the number of (calibre) guns that we will now use to train police with."

Heath, who spoke shortly after the start of a training-of-trainers programme for 14 officers who will spearhead a firearm retraining scheme in the constabulary, said that the directive was in line with the police's revised use-of-force policy. That policy is expected to be implemented next month.

The move by the police to limit the use of high-powered weapons by junior and untrained members of the constabulary, is part of the efforts of Commissioner Francis Forbes to cut down the number of police homicides in Jamaica which, in recent years, has hovered around the 140 mark.

Although police homicides are about half the level of the 1980s, human rights groups insist -- and the authorities accept -- that they remain unacceptably high. Human rights groups also often accuse the constabulary of extra-judicial killings.

Three years ago, Commissioner Forbes, bitten by the criticism and himself concerned at the incidence of police shootings, complained that high-powered weapons were being issued "a little too freely" to young cops who may be technically proficient but who "perhaps don't have the level of maturity that will make them safe carriers of these weapons".

He told commanders that high-powered guns should not be issued to police officers with under two years' service, and that they should not be carried by plainclothes policemen.

Forbes also pledged to introduce an annual competency test.

However, a shortage of handguns caused commanders to continue to issue high-powered weapons, such as M16 rifles to police on patrol, but the problem of low-calibre weapons was eased last year.

Heath said that with the new policy, probationers would no longer, as a matter of course, be issued with high-powered guns and neither would police officers be dispatched on duty with weapons that they are not qualified to use.

The new policy, he said, was underpinned by the force's concerns for human rights and the International Enforcement Law of Conduct.

In an earlier address to the course's participants, Heath said that the constabulary was "committed to retraining every member of the force (in firearm use) by the middle of 2004".

"It is our policy that by the middle of next year, every policeman and woman will be trained and certified in this new and modernised use of firearms," Heath told the group. "It is our commitment to expose everyone to this approach method."

Most cases of police excesses, the senior police officer said, could be related to "poor training".

"(We) hope the training will reduce, if not eliminate, the excessive use of force," he told the prospective trainers.

The 14 participants in the course, he said, were selected because they had demonstrated the mental commitment to be part of "a comprehensive, modernised approach to firearms training".

Heath said the constabulary was striving to get the police officers to live up to the four cardinal principles governing the use of force:

* proportionality;

* legality;

* accountability; and

* necessity.

The four-week training programme for the firearm instructors is being conducted by former London Metropolitan Police divisional commander, Chief Superintendent Paul Mathias.

Mathias explained to the participants that two years ago he was asked to look at the use and safety of firearms and examine its current training in the force.

He said his recommendations included:

* a modernised and refurbished firing range;

* new use-of-force policy;

* repair kits;

* a revised armoury protocol; and a

* series of training programmes.

All his recommendations were adopted, Mathias said.

According to Mathias, he has already trained 46 investigators of police shootings. They were from agencies such as the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions; Jamaicans for Justice; the police's Office of Professional Responsibility; the Police Federation; the police Internal Affairs Division; and the Police Public Complaints Authority.

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