Nzinga King ruling an example why the people will impose revolutionary change for justice one day

A policeman comes along and tries to get the man inside to come out so he can be arrested. The man is non-compliant and the policeman takes out his pepper spray gun and sprays inside the taxi to get him out. Everyone is affected including the baby.

On exiting the taxi and having to take off her mask because she could not breathe, Nzinga verbally confronts the policeman about the recklessness of what he just did. His response is to arrest her for not wearing a mask. He sends her into the back of a waiting police truck.

According to the police account as gathered by INDECOM and the Office of the Director of Prosecution (ODPP), the policeman is on “enforcement duty” and sees Nzinga “walking along the street without a mask.”  He confronts her about not wearing a mask, she becomes verbally abusive, he pepper sprays her, and arrests her.

Neither INDECOM nor the ODPP questions, or is concerned in the slightest, as to whether this is an appropriate use of pepper spray.  It is not and the policeman should have been arrested for the offence of “assault occasioning bodily harm”.  The casual use of pepper spray which is contrary to written guidelines, seems now to be police policy which the police commissioner refuses to publicly address.  The fake eyewitness to the police version of what happened is not necessary to examine because the police have admitted that they used pepper spray against her.

At the May Pen Police Station, Nzinga receives station bail and she says that the bail bond says explicitly that she was charged for not wearing a mask. Her present attorney, who has the bail bond, has a duty to publicly release it to confirm Nzinga’s claim.

On her appearance before the court on July 22, 2021, Nzinga is sentenced for disorderly conduct. She is not asked to plead guilty or not guilty. She does NOT then have a lawyer and the policeman who arrested her did not appear. The DPP claims that based on court documents, Nzinga pleaded guilty to the charge of disorderly conduct and using abusive language but not to the charge of not wearing a mask.

This of course makes absolutely no sense because these charges are inter-connected so if the judge really did put these charges separately to her as the court document supposedly claims, why in defence of herself would Nzinga want to separate the charges? DPP Paula Llewellyn has absolutely no credibility where this is concerned and she should release the court document which she claims to have so that it can be publicly examined. In any event, the sentencing of poor defendants who have no lawyer, is a common practice in many courts in Jamaica. 

Within a half hour after arriving at the Four Paths Police Station a woman constable takes Nzinga into a bathroom and cuts her locks with a pair of scissors.  Nzinga who has worn locks all her life – her parents are Rastafarian – is able to scoop up most of the hair (not all) and kept it in her possession.

The police claim, on the other hand, supported by INDECOM and the DPP, is that it was Nzinga who “pulled” out her locks. There is absolutely no need to examine the so-called evidence produced which claim that she pulled out her own locks – not cut them off – since it is patently ridiculous. The absolute pain which this would have caused her is unimaginable – even if she were certifiably insane.

The DPP and INDECOM have absolutely no credibility where this is concerned. There is no need to examine the fake evidence of imprisoned eyewitnesses which they have produced.

Clearly, this is an attempt to defend abusive police behaviour at all cost.

A ringing cell phone is discovered in one of the cells by the same policewoman who cut Nzinga’s locks. When Nzinga admits that the phone was hers but not in the cell where she was being kept, and had no responsibility for it, because she was stripped naked and all her possessions taken away at the beginning of her incarceration, the policewoman angrily smashes the phone against the wall.  The policewoman claims, however, according to the ODPP documents, that the phone fell from her hand. That’s the end of the matter for INDECOM and the DPP.  The policewoman will not be held accountable for destruction of property based on a phone falling out of her hand. How many phones are destroyed because they fell from your hand?

Stemming from this incidence, Nzinga claims that pepper spray was used against the cell occupants and she was held responsible for the pepper spray by her cell mates. She was beaten by them prior to leaving. This may very well account for the fake and ridiculous eyewitness claims that she was seen pulling out her locks.

What happened to Nzinga was not a police extrajudicial killing claim, but exposes the common sense logic absent from INDECOM and the ODPP

Police abuse of poor people is systemic and the solution to the problem is not simply to ask for Paula Llewellyn to resign or be impeached and for INDECOM to be condemned as impotent and corrupt.

This is an example of why the people will one day need to impose revolutionary change in order for there to be justice in this country.

We have a constitutional right to life, liberty and security of the person.

Lloyd D’Aguilar is convenor of the People’s Anti-Corruption Movement. Send feedback to lgdaguilar@yahoo.com.