Editorial | The logic of BWCs

It is inconceivable that the bosses of the constabulary force were against the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by the police, especially during planned operations. That would defy logic in the face of the police’s fatal shooting this week in Clarendon of Jamar Farquharson, the surveillance footage that has emerged of the incident before Mr Farquharson’s death, and the increasing chorus calling on the police to wear body cams.

The is why the police’s reiteration of the April 2023 announcement by the security minister, Horace Chang, of the planned procurement of the 1,000 BWCs will be widely welcomed, even as the authorities are called on to accelerate the process.

Mr Farquharson, 22, was among 230 Jamaicans killed by members of the security forces up to September 25 – all but a few by police officers.

Jamaica has a long history of large numbers of citizens being killed by the police. However, numbers declined after the 2010 establishment of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), the agency that probes shootings by the security forces as well as complaints of their use of excessive force or other forms of abuse. The numbers have been on the rise again over the past two years.

In 2024, 189 people were killed by the security forces (95 per cent by the police), which was an increase of 22 per cent on the previous year. And the 2023 figure (134) represented a 16 per cent rise on the number for 2022.

With more than three months to go before the end of 2025, police killings for the year have already surpassed those for all of 2024 by 22 per cent.

EXPRESSED CONCERN

It is to the backdrop of these statistics that INDECOM, as well as human rights advocates, have expressed concern over the constabulary’s slow pace in fully implementing the use of body-worn cameras, an issue that has been on their agenda for more than a dozen years.

The police insist that the people they kill are criminals who engage them in shoot-outs, and argue that this has to be seen in the context of a high-crime environment in which, until this year, murders have been well above 1,000 annually.

The incident involving Mr Farquharson will raise troubling questions for the police, while reinforcing the reasonableness of calls for the constabulary’s full, and urgent, embrace of body cams – to which the police chief, Kevin Blake, insists he is committed.

The police say Mr Farquharson was killed when he pulled a gun on officers who went to his home in search of criminal suspects and evidence. They had a search warrant. It is not clear whether Mr Farquharson was one of those suspects.

This newspaper doesn’t know whether, as the police say, Mr Farquharson pulled a gun on them when he was taken back into a bedroom. It could have happened.

However, based on video footage circulated on social media, which it is said was captured by surveillance cameras inside the home, doubts have been raised.

The footage shows Mr Farquharson, apparently on hearing a knocking, or a bell, walking casually to the front door and opening it. Apparently, on seeing police officers, he raised his arms, the universal sign of surrender.

As at least one police officer, and perhaps more, enters the house, Mr Farquharson proceeds outside, probably on the insistence of the cops.

There is no clarity on what happened next or how Mr Farquharson was killed. The reports suggest that at some point he was back in the house and in a bedroom, where he pulled a firearm.

Mr Farquharson’s family suggest that the video surveillance system in the home was tampered with. If the police were wearing body-worn cameras, their version might not now be in doubt and they might have already been vindicated.

PLANNED OPERATION

This was a planned police operation, involving, according to INDECOM, 23 officers. None of them were fitted with BWCs. Which, as INDECOM has complained over the past two years, is the case with these types of operations during which more than 40 per cent of the police killings occur.

The constabulary has reported that it has around 750 BWCs, which are used by units engaged in public order policing. A broader roll-out of body-worn cameras, according to police commissioner, Kevin Blake, is contingent on the build of the technological backbone to support it. This, for onlookers, seems an excruciatingly slow process.

The deaths, and controversies around them, that are too often associated with planned police operations underline the unimpeachable good sense of prioritising the use of body-worn cameras in these situations. It is surprising that Dr Blake and the police high command appear not to agree.

But choice of the use of BWCs shouldn’t be binary. It is imperative that they be implemented as quickly as possible for all front-facing formations.

The constabulary ought not to construe these calls as being demoralising anti-police rhetoric by bleeding-heart liberals who hug up criminals at the expense of their victims. They are made because citizens want to have full trust and confidence in the constabulary, while ensuring respect for the rights of all Jamaicans, including those accused of crimes.

If these ideals collapse, it suggests a failure of a system of justice that preserves the fundamental rights and freedoms upon which democracy rests. Nobody wants that.