Can anything good come out of Jones Town?

Florida city gets its first Jamaican police chief

By Desmond Allen Executive Editor - Operations allend@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, September 18, 2011

LAUDERHILL, Florida — There's a new sheriff in town. Well, more specifically, a new chief of police in this heavily Jamaican populated city. And — surprise, surprise — he's Jamaican.

Andrew Maurice Smalling, a veteran cop of 25 years, may have left Jamaica at age eight, with little memory of the sprawling slums of troubled inner-city Jones Town, Kingston where he was born 49 years ago. But he grew up decidedly Jamaican under the influence of his parents Doreen and Albert Smalling.

And it might not be mere coincidence that the first chance he got to give back to the land of his birth that he chose another volatile inner-city community, Grant's Pen, which vied with Jones Town for the dubious top billing as the most violent enclave in the Jamaican capital.

Last month, Smalling picked upscale Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston to marry "the love of my life", Jamaican Pauline Case, followed by a brief honeymoon at the made-for-romance Strawberry Hill, St Andrew.

"We share a common heritage in the culture, music, language and food of Jamaica," he told the Sunday Observer, referring to his wife, a pretty policewoman and former soldier in the United States Army.

"In fact, she's such a good cook that if I keep eating like this, I soon won't be able to fit into my uniform," Smalling laughed heartily, before being interrupted by the reggae ring tone on his cell phone.

Last Thursday morning, the day before the interview, Smalling, a well-read policeman who also lectures once a week in Criminal Justice at Broward College, was sworn-in for the second time as chief of police, 11 years after becoming the first black to be appointed top cop in the neighbouring city of Lauderdale Lakes.

When he swore on his 95-year-old grandmother's bible to protect the 70,000 residents of the City of Lauderdale - more than twice the size of Lauderdale Lakes — he had become only the second black to head the 140-strong police force in a city nicknamed Jamaica Hill, because of the large population of immigrants from the northern Caribbean island.

But Smalling's affinity for things Jamaican does not to extend to criminals.

"I don't care if they are Americans, Jamaicans or Chinese. A drug dealer is a drug dealer and they all belong in jail," he said, with the seriousness of a professional policeman.

Smalling's swearing-in ceremony, punctuated throughout by lusty applause in the packed city hall, was taking place just about the same time as the city was announcing the appointment of its first African-American, another Jamaican - Robert Runcie - to the powerful position of superintendent of schools for the Broward County.

Smalling left Jamaica as a young child to join his parents in Colin Powell's Bronx, New York where his dad was working for CONED, the gas utility company.

After Intermediate School 180 in the Bronx, he went to Aviation High School, leaving with an Aircraft Mechanics license, then went straight to the US Air Force Academy in Colorado, before moving on to the Florida Institute of Technology, from which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Technical Communications.

Smalling said that as a young boy scout he had always wanted to join the military.

"It felt like it was my calling. I wanted to be a pilot but when that did not work out, I went for my next love - intelligence work," he said.

That led him in 1986 to the Marine Corps and five years in military intelligence, "basically gathering information on any country deemed an enemy of the United States". He left at the rank of major, but remained for another five years in the army reserves.

When he left the military in 1991, he joined the Broward Sheriff's Office (BSO) working as a patrol deputy in Pompano Beach, noting that the military had prepared him well for a career in law enforcement.

"It gave me the discipline and grounding that I needed for a successful tenure in law enforcement. I found the job very exciting and dynamic," said Smalling. He especially liked working directly with the community.

Afterwards, he spent several years fighting drug dealers on the streets of Broward County but admits that that was a "frustrating time".

"It appeared as if we kept arresting the same people. It just seemed as if we could not keep them (the drug dealers) in jail for any time. It was like a turn-style."

He said Jamaicans were among the drug dealers he encountered but most of the anti-narcotics activities involving the infamous 'Jamaican Posse' was under the jurisdiction of federal law enforcement.

Smalling went next to the Organised Crime Division, chasing big drug dealers, human traffickers and the like. He treasured the opportunity to work more closely with local, state and federal level agencies on more long term cases. In the girls trafficked as prostitutes from other countries he did not come across any Jamaicans, noting that most came from Eurasia.

He had by now joined the rank of sergeant and moved next to the Internal Affairs Division which he described as "a good career move as it allowed me to see the inner working of the agency...I was now dealing with administration, policy and with the upper command staff on key issues such as disciplinary matters.

Two years later in 2000, Smalling was promoted to Lieutenant - importantly, a direct trajectory to the prized, if challenging job as chief of police. He moved to the City of Lauderdale Lakes where Jamaicans can be found around every other corner. There he was responsible for all patrol functions.

Smalling's meteoric rise up the police hierarchy, which also included stints as a school resource officer and K-9 Unit commander, continued a year later when he made executive officer - second in command to the chief.

In short order, the man from Jones Town was appointed the first black and first Jamaican to occupy the position of chief of police of the predominantly black and Caribbean city of Lauderdale Lakes. Approximately 15 per cent of his staff of 77 was Jamaican. He noted that Jamaican-born State Representative Hazelle Rogers had helped to make it happen for him.

It was a historic position but it was "challenging from the first day to the last", he said. Fighting crime was almost as important as dodging the missiles of city politics.

"At times I was trying to please community activists, the elected city commissioners and the mayor, as well as carry out the directives charged to me by the Sheriff, while ensuring that my staff was happy and doing the job that we had to do. It was a serious balancing act and it could be stressful at times," Smalling admitted.

But he prevailed in the job, by introducing or enlarging community policing programmes, like the Safe Neighbourhood Units, the Explorer programme for young people interested in policing and the Observer Patrols under which volunteers from communities were provided with a marked police vehicle to patrol the area and report any crime to the police. A deputy was appointed to be a direct liaison with the community.

More importantly, crime rates fell dramatically. Four or five homicides a year was regarded as high, Smalling said. But he bemoaned the subsequent scaling back in some of the programmes as a result of the current economic recession.

During that time, Smalling jumped at an opportunity to help fight crime in Jamaica. He took up the invitation by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to work with the American Chamber of Commerce and the Jamaica Constabulary Force, under Commissioner Francis Forbes, to transform Grant's Pen. He also introduced the School Resource Officer programme to Jamaica.

"I feel as if I am giving back something to the place of my birth and it is something I am very happy to do," he said.

Part of his giving back involves being four-year president of the South Florida branch of the National Organisation of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

Smalling's work as chief of police in Lauderdale Lakes and the baptism of fire which it sparked, as well as the close relationship which he had developed with the police chief of neighbouring Lauderhill, paid off.

When 11-year Chief Kenneth Pachnek, a man he would describe as "a leader whom I could follow", announced his impending retirement, Smalling applied for the job.

Pachnek and Smalling had often had to chase the same criminals whose activities straddled their two cities and they had come to know each other's abilities well. Upon his recommendation to city manager, Charles "Chuck" Faranda, the city called off the customary nationwide search for a police chief and gave Smalling the nod, after a series of hard interviews by the commissioners headed by Mayor Richard Kaplan.

On July 5, 2011, Smalling was appointed chief of police of the City of Lauderhill and sworn-in on September 15, pledging to leave the city a better place after is tenure, by pressing ahead with his philosophy of community policing.

"I want my officers to know the good people as well as the bad people. If the bad people continue to do bad things, we are going to remove them from the Cit of Lauderhill.

"At the same time, I'm going to have a lot of time for the people who legitimately want to make our city a better place."

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Can anything good come out of Jones Town?