WE AGREE wholeheartedly with Clerk of the Courts Thomas Levene in criticising in the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate's Court on Wednesday, the behaviour of some members of the Narcotics Police Division who had gone there escorting two men whose extradition is being sought by the United States Government on drug trafficking charges.
Unseemly behaviour at any courthouse is always unacceptable, whatever the case, and especially on the part of the police. For the police to have disrupted the court routine in the fashion reported by the news media was nothing short of deplorable.
The extradition case in question has been dogged from the start by misplaced exuberance on the part of the police, with execution of the arrest warrants being billed as the mother of all local drug busts, when in fact, according to the evidence made public so far, the case involves a routine request for extradition.
There has been a tendency in recent times for police behaviour to get decidedly out of hand, with members of the Jamaica Constabulary sometimes descending on courthouses in such numbers and in a fashion bordering on intimidation, when some of their colleagues are to appear in the dock.
The police need to set examples of good behaviour in public and not get carried away in situations where they may perceive themselves to be the people of the moment.
To have 'captured' the courthouse in the fashion reported, questioning court staff and restricting their movements, was simply out of order, and ought not to happen again. Police managers and supervisors must exercise control over their personnel and discipline them when they fall out of line.
Of course it is of paramount importance that security be maintained, but security and decorum and discipline are not incompatible concepts.
The head of the Police Narcotics Division needs to apologise personally to the Senior Resident Magistrate who presided over the court on Wednesday, and to the court staff, and to give the assurance that the distasteful behaviour displayed in his absence by personnel under his command, will never recur, anywhere.
Members of the Jamaica Constabulary need to be reminded that be you ever so high, the law is above you and that they too must always obey the law and the relevant rules and regulations.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
