ADAMS... I accept the change professionally

POLICE Commissioner Francis Forbes has ordered that all police tactical squads, including the controversial Crime Management Unit (CMU), be collapsed into the Harman Barracks-based Mobile Reserve, which is be restructured and reoriented, police sources said yesterday.

The other major squads to be embraced by Mobile Reserves are the Special Anti-Crime Task Force (SACTF) and the Flying Squad.

FORD... head of the Flying Squad

Arthur Martin, the assistant commissioner who heads Area 4, the Kingston and St Andrew police region, is to lead the restructuring and will have full oversight responsibilities for the new body. It, however, was not immediately clear whether Martin would have a change in portfolio.

Previously, Mobile Reserve was commanded by an assistant commissioner, Linden Bell, who went into retirement several months ago.

MARTIN... now in charge of special units

Last night the CMU's controversial head, Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, confirmed the reorganisation, in keeping with recommendations of a report by the American police consulting group, PERF, and said that he was ready to work with Martin.

"I accept the change professionally," Adams told the Observer. "... I will work with Mr Martin ... As long as he treats me with dignity and respect and give me a chance to participate in the running of things, then I have no problem. The very day that is not forthcoming then I will ask the commissioner to have me removed."

Neither the SACTF's head, Deputy Supt Bent nor the Flying Squad's commander, Cornwall "Bigga" Ford were available for comment last night.

Forbes' action is apparently part of a wider reshuffle of the police's high command that will see the reassignment of several commanders and is also coming hard on the heels of the commissioner's decision to discipline a dozen members of the CMU who reported sick on Tuesday, apparently in protest against Adams' leadership.

Forbes deemed the action of the men as unprofessional in that they bypassed existing police grievance procedures. Apparently, too, Forbes seemed to have given credence to complaints made by Adams about the conduct of several of the men.

The CMU, established in September 2001, was the latest in a series of police task forces established to respond to a rising wave of crime.

Adams a tough, flambouyant, lead-from-the-front cop, deemed to be incorruptible, was named to head the unit, but it has been dogged by controversy from the start with the Opposition complaining over the choice of leader.

Human rights groups, too, have criticised the CMU for its involvement in several controversial shootings, including last year July's violence in West Kingston, when 27 people, including a policeman and soldier were killed and before that, the killing of seven young men in a house in Braeton, St Catherine.

In the case of the Braeton incident, a coroner's jury, by a majority decision, held that the police were not criminally liable for the death of the seven and in the case of the West Kingston violence the security forces were exonerated by a commission of inquiry which held that police and soldiers came under relentless fire from gunmen.

Notwithstanding the controversy that has swirled around him, Adams, in a country with one of the world's highest murder rates and where nearly 900 people have been murdered so far this year, has remained personally popular with opinion polls this year giving him an approval rating of 60 per cent.

But the PERF group, made up of former police officers, in a report submitted to the government after a study last year, recommended that the Jamaica Constabulary Force changes its tactics to community policing, particularly in inner-city communities with high levels of crime and violence.

They also recommended that the special tactical units be abolished in favour of one highly-trained and effective group capable of response to special cases.

But Adams' interpretation of the change seemed to be that his CMU will be a unit with the wider Mobile Reserve.

"I will be still in charge of the CMU," he said. "The Anti-Crime Task Force and CMU will still be there. It is only that we will report directly to Martin."

This could not be immediately confirmed.

Until now, Adams, who reported directly to Forbes, had a core of about 25 but could call on men from any other part of the force, at short notice, for his operations.

With the change, Mobile Reserve, which had nearly 700 men assigned to it, will now have near 1,000.

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