Opinion ID: 4529351
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fear of Police Persecution

Text: Scarlett sought such relief based on his professed fear of persecution from former police supervisors if returned to Jamaica. To explain that fear, Scarlett testified that in 2005, after already serving a decade in the Jamaican Constabulary Force, he was assigned to a special squad in Denham Town that investigated murders and shootings. Scarlett testified that the squad leader, Superintendent Delroy Hewitt, was corrupt, falsifying police reports to conceal misconduct and using officers to perform contract murders. When, in 2006, Hewitt asked Scarlett to perform such a contract murder, he refused. 2 Thereafter, on two occasions—once in 2008, and again in 2009—Hewitt verbally abused Scarlett for taking suspects into custody rather than killing them. The suspect Scarlett arrested in 2008 was a member of the Jamaican Labour Party (“JLP”), and Hewitt accused Scarlett of not killing the suspect because of Scarlett’s own support for that party.3 Hewitt made a similar accusation in connection with the 2009 arrest. On that occasion, Hewitt and other 2In the absence of any adverse finding by the agency or challenge from the government, we assume the credibility of Scarlett’s testimony. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). 3 Hearing evidence—including a State Department Country Report— indicated that Jamaica’s two major political parties, the JLP and the People’s National Party (“PNP”), sometimes use gangs to further political aims. The gangs most frequently affiliated with the JLP are the “Shower Posse” and the “One Order”; the gang most frequently associated with the PNP is the “Spanglers.” Scarlett testified that he has never been affiliated with any political party or even voted in a Jamaican election. 6 squad members surrounded Scarlett as Hewitt told Scarlett that he posed a danger to the entire squad. Scarlett testified that he began to fear for his life, particularly because, the previous year, he had heard squad members bragging about killing a police officer. At about this time, Scarlett suspected that Hewitt was having him surveilled. On two occasions Scarlett reported the suspected surveillance by calling Jamaica’s emergency services number. Responding police discovered that the occupants of the suspected surveillance vehicle were, indeed, persons associated with Hewitt’s squad, including another supervisor, “Harry J.,” all of whom denied that they were following Scarlett. In March of 2009, Scarlett requested, and was granted, a transfer out of Hewitt’s squad. He was reassigned to the Guanaboa Vale division, some 20 miles from Denham Town. He testified to no further harassment or threats by police officials generally, or Hewitt in particular.