The government knows very well, however, that the criminal justice system depends on a corrupt and inefficient police force to carry out the investigations. By insisting that the police investigate themselves they are ensuring that in this and in all other cases the police are able to kill with impunity. In 1999 police and soldiers beat Michael Gayle, a man of unsound mind to death and though a Coroner's Court ruled that he was murdered no one was charged because the chief law enforcement officer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, claimed not to know who to charge. The current police investigations are already compromised because under the command of Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, head of the CMU, policemen involved in the killings removed bullet shells from the scene. Other incriminating evidence was removed or contaminated.
Eyewitnesses report blood being washed away.
Common sense dictates, therefore, that it is not likely that any of these police murderers will be charged much less convicted. Jamaican human rights organizations cannot therefore be content with assurance from the government that they are allowing due process to go forward. It must not be forgotten that over the years the state has carefully perfected the art of protecting extrajudicial police killings. Due process is a corrupted process. The minister of national security publicly gave the police the green light to kill those who fire at the police.