One-On-One With Owen Stephenson - A hero in uniform

Members of the Special Anti-Crime Task Force on an operation. - File

The Police Force has had an exceptionally high profile in the media, with allegations of brutality by specialised squads and the alleged involvement of police in narcotics trafficking. Too often history is written after the main participants have vanished from the scene.

In this series of articles, ("Atomic Gungo and Kid Ralph" August 22, 2001, "A Hero in Uniform," Part 1, September 5, 2001, Part 2, September 7), I share with you some of the memories and opinions of one of the most colourful police officers to have worked from Jamaica's colonial period, straight through Independence until he feared for his family's life and left the force in the turbulent 1970s. With 10 years in the army and almost 25 years in the police force, including work with Immigration, the Water Police's 'frog squad', Narcotics, the Flying Squad, and the Mobile Reserve, Captain Owen Stephenson has many tales to tell, and does so in a dramatic fashion, forthrightly calling names and recreating conversations with some of Jamaica's most prominent personalities. Some of those personalities will wish to contribute their own memories of events, and in those events we may see where the seeds of current police practices were sown.

OUR FIRST interview took place on April 13, 2000 and was followed by others on May 24, May 30 and June 2, 2001. Captain Owen Stephenson worked under various Police Commissioners, including Commissioners Michelen, Browning, Crosswell, Langdon, Middleton, Robinson and Campbell. Though the series covers his early days, going back to his birth in Kingston in 1925, and provides incidents from the various areas in which he served, the first thing I wanted to hear about were his experiences in West Kingston. He remembered:

"I was transferred from Montego Bay. I was in charge of Area 1 ­ Hanover, Westmoreland, Trelawny, and St. James. I had a wonderful two years there [1964-1966], enjoying life. We were at cocktail parties. We were at dinner parties. We were invited everywhere. The hoteliers all wanted to see you. If you didn't go to Bay Roc to see Harold deLisser at least once every two weeks, he'd ring up and say: 'What have I done you'? You'd have to go and have lunch with him and he'd give you all the stories of what was happening around. It was wonderful."

Despite Stephenson's portrayal of an idyllic social existence in Montego Bay, Major General Robert Neish says Stephenson was a man of absolute professional integrity whom he first met when, as a young pilot, Neish flew the lone helicopter available for narcotics eradication in the area under Stephenson's command.

Stephenson continues: "Then all of a sudden I was told by Donald Sangster, who was the Prime Minister, and Gordon Langdon, Commissioner of Police, on the day that they were seeing the Duke of Edinburgh off at Sangster Airport that I was going to West Kingston. I said: 'Oh God, don't tell me that. I don't believe this. It's a bad dream'.

"And Donald said: 'Yes, I know what you've been doing over here. But you are going to West Kingston. Clean up West Kingston and I promise you, if you clean it up, I'll send you back here. 'With a heavy heart I went to West Kingston'.

According to Stephenson, a Mobile Reserve of 50 men was in existence at Independence, but when the violence in West Kingston mounted, Commissioner Gordon Langdon brought in 100 police from throughout the island to increase the Mobile Reserve, stationed them at Harmon Barracks and put Owen Stephenson in charge of them. Says Stephenson:

"I found that the man in charge of the West Kingston division didn't know what he was doing. He was being terrorised, practically, by Seaga who would ring him at all hours of the day and evening. The fellow was practically married to the station once the tribalism was going on and I showed him how to deal with Seaga on the telephone. When the phone rang, I picked it up. It was Seaga: 'Eddie Seaga here. Look, I want so and so done soon.' And I'd hold the phone off and say: 'Can't hear a word. This phone is out of order. Can't hear a word.' And I'd put it down. Phone rings again. I'd pick it up, say: 'HELLO. HELLO, HELLO,' and I knew who was on the other end and I'd put it down.I turned around and said: 'Now, you do thatnext time.' I just had NO intention of dealing with either him or [Dudley] Thompson. I knew Thompson better than Seaga at the time, because I'd had cases in court with Thompson when I was in narcotics. He defended a lot of ganja cases.

"I was told by the Commissioner in charge of Area 4 that I was NOT to use any plainclothes men. And I was never to raid any of the headquarters unless I told him first of all. I decided one day that I'd had enough of this. The shooting had gone on too badly. I got five of my youngsters from the Mobile Reserve, because we'd just started the revised Mobile Reserve, with young men drawn from the parishes of various divisions. I told them: 'Look, we want to draw fire, so that we know what we're doing.I want you to go past Chocomo Lawn [on Wellington Street in Denham Town] and I, want you to go past Regent Street. Chocomo Lawn was Seaga's headquarters and Regent Street was Dudley Thompson's. So late at night they went past Chocomo Lawn and they didn't take the bait. But the minute they got to Thompson's headquarters, men in the building thought they were coming from Chocomo Lawn, and opened fire on them. So they returned the fire and killed one of them. They came breathlessly running into the station saying that they came under fire, returned fire, they'd killed a man.

"These plainclothes officers, on foot, took a big chance. They were armed with pistols. That's all. I phoned the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Area 4 and said: 'Now, I have good information. Fire came from Thompson's headquarters. I wish permission to raid it now.' And he said: 'No. Wait til daylight'. So I couldn't do anything about it.

I think he was afraid of any political repercussions, and this was the problem. Eventually, they brought in the army;the army cordoned off the whole area and the police cleaned it up. Both headquarters were raided and at Chocomo Lawn nothing was found because they knew that the raid was coming, because the JLP were in government. At Dudley Thompson's headquarters they found weapons and stuff like that".

Stephenson says: "In my opinion, '66 was when the real crunch started as far as the weapons were concerned". When asked which side was really the one that had caused the problem, he replied: "I think they both did. The minute a shot was fired, the other guy made sure that he was able to return the first too. It escalated. I wouldn't hazard a guess on who shot first because both gentlemen are well known to be able to look after themselves."

According to Capt. Stephenson, a 50-man Mobile Reserve commanded by Andrew Lack existed at Independence but the idea of expanding it with men recruited from outside the force "was an idea that originated between myself and Gordon Langdon, Commissioner of Police. We needed a strike force to deal with the political violence that we knew was coming up." After being brought into Kingston in 1966 to help deal with the violence of West Kingston, he says: "I was instructed to recruit and train, away from the Academy or the Police Training School, an intake of 150 men. We did the recognised way of recruitment, after having an advertisementin the newspaper, calling for young men between the age of 18 and 20, who were in good physical condition. We didn't expect a tremendous amount of educational background, provided that the recruit could read, write and do simple arithmetic. I figured that with exposure, a young man, who in my opinion could make a constable, would eventually find his own niche, as far as the educational ability was concerned.We went around the island recruiting several times until the Mobile Reserve was eventually built up to 800.

"Every recruiting squad that came through the Mobile Reserve, first thing that I told them was that if I heard one word out of anybody that he was affiliated with any political party, he was going straight through the gate. They can have their own ideas as to who they're going to vote for, but I don't want to hear about it. Every squad was told this upon being recruited," Stephenson insists. "During the start of the Mobile Reserve, prior to my forming the temporary training school at Harmon Barracks itself, I had taken over several of the army's huts from Brigadier David Smith. Before he knew what was happening, I had my men in there and rather captured it, plus the army cookhouse. The Mobile Reserve was a disciplined force. In fact we had army instructors because I got hold of the Chief-of-Staff, Brigadier Dunstan Robinson and afterwards Major-General Rudolph Green. I had served in the army with them both so I got the drill instructors from the JDF and also weapons instructors.The school had nothing like this. I also built an assault course at Harmon Barracks. The chaps just before lunch, everyday, every man went over the assault course, which did not go down well with the rest of the force because they thought I was trying to have an army at Harmon Barracks.

"The army was all on my side, except for a couple of times when my boys clashed with the army, over some nonsense or another. There was a good relationship. They would come down and play dominoes; we would go up there.When we had trouble, Col. Ken Barnes andI would walk hand-in-hand through his Lathbury Barracks, and we would walk hand-in-hand through Harmon Barracks as a demonstration to solidarity. The boys picked it up very, very soon.No nonsense was going to be tolerated." Col. Barnes remembers Stephenson as someone who carried out his duties without fear or favour and might have been disliked by some politicians because of that.

One politician with whom the Mobile Reserve found favour was Hugh Shearer. Stephenson recalls: "I had always taught the men that they had to be loyal to the government that was IN the government, whether it was PNP or JLP. In those days it was Hugh Shearer who was ALL Mobile Reserve. In fact when he entered a political meeting, and the Mobile Reserve men were there, the first thing he did was to WARN the crowd. He said: 'Now look, let me tell you, you see the men with the white helmets on, they're my police and if you step out of line, God Help YOU," sort of thing. He was so keen on the Mobile Reserve, that he instructed me that he was coming to have lunch with them one day, in our dining room in the very early days of the Mobile Reserve. He had a wonderful time. Every Christmas party we had, he was invited and always attended".

Shearer discovered the Mobile Reserve in an unorthodox way. Created as a rapid deployment force trained to control ugly crowd situations, the Mobile Reserve was present for Sir Donald Sangster's funeral. "When the funeral was over," Stephenson remembers, "there was a huge crowd. I couldn't find an officer senior to me. Darkness was coming down." Fearing the consequences of leaving this emotionally charged crowd in the park without any lights, he says: "I decided that I was going to clear the park. I had the Mounted Troop under my command as I was the officer in charge of Harmon Barracks at the time. I put the Mounted Troop on the left, the Mobile Reserve on the right, and gave the order to advance and clear the park. We were stoned and people's shoes, hats, and bicycles were littered all over the place. But we had the park cleared by nightfall. When I got home, Commissioner Langdon called me on the phone: "Who gave you permission to clear the park?"

"I said: 'Nobody did, because I couldn't find anyone. I decided to do it on my own."

"He said: 'Well, you are going to face the Privy Council for doing a thing like that."

"So I said: 'Well, that's too bad'.

"During the funeral, there were some boys in a tree, quite near where the VIP stand was, and they were using a lot of indecent language and making a lot of noise. I had called one of my platoon commanders and told him to use his platoon and clear the tree. In those days the Mobile Reserve were very aggressive people and they used their batons to hit people out of the tree. I realised this was quite a serious matter as well.

"Langdon had to go and see Prime Minister Shearer and during the conversation, the Prime Minister said to him: 'Commissioner, those men who wear the white helmets, where do they come from?"

"Langdon said: 'Sir, they are the Mobile Reserve, commanded by a madman called Owen Stephenson.'

"Shearer turned around to him and said: 'Commissioner, that's how I want to see police work done'.

"Langdon didn't know that there was another officer there with him who had told me about what Shearer had said: 'That's how I want to see police work done.' So when I phoned Langdon at 10 o'clock and said: 'Sir, I'm coming to you to talk about the Privy Council.' He said: 'Oh, Stephenson, don't bother me. I'm busy now.' So I didn't have to go before the Privy Council"!

By Laura Tanna

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