ENRAGED mobs have hacked almost a dozens persons to death, an average of three per month this year, a count of police cases show, as ‘vigilante justice’ continues to spiral out of control and blood-lust substitutes for inadequate law enforcement.

Since January, the police blotters have recorded at least 14 mob beatings – 11 of them fatal – and property damage mostly in rural districts across Jamaica where folks are largely poor and their economic welfare rests on back-breaking subsistence farming.

The victims, usually men, were mainly alleged to be thieves; some were accused of being sex offenders.

Raymond Dinall, 37, was a suspected cow thief.

On April 1 this year, Dinall, who lived near the rural farming community of Thompson Town in Clarendon, was caught with a full-grown bull that the mob that beat him to death believed he had stolen a week before from a resident in nearby Wanstead.

No one has been indicted for Dinall’s death, a scenario not unusual in Jamaica where vigilantes are rarely brought to justice.

“I’ve known of cases where persons were arrested for mob killings – maybe not in recent times,” said Superintendent Derrick ‘Cowboy’ Knight, divisional head of the Clarendon police.

“We have seen an increase in mob killings right across the island last year and this year, and we are saying we have to put some effort behind stopping this.”

In fact, police commissioner Lucius Thomas, in various speaking engagements across the island, has been warning of the social upheaval that vigilanteism creates, and talking tough about the consequences for the perpetrators of mob violence.

So far, however, it has only been talk.

“We cannot and, the police force which I lead, will not tolerate any form of vigilante justice,” said Thomas on March 4 in Portland, days after the house of a suspected murderer was torched in St Thomas, and a month before Dinall was killed.

But last week when the Sunday Observer sought comment from the commissioner on what policy or strategy he is putting in place to tackle vigilante crimes, he avoided comment, referring the Sunday Observer to his subordinates through his communication officer.

Vigilantes in Jamaica tend to operate in groups, often targetting persons suspected of praedial and cattle larceny, paedophilia, homosexuality, petty theft, and, occasionally, heinous murders.

Praedial larceny refers to theft of agricultural produce.

Of the 11 vigilante killings captured in police media bulletins this year, four were men allegedly caught sexually molesting women or children and one was said to be attempting to flee the police, but the majority of the victims were suspected praedial, cattle and petty thieves.

The killlings are often gruesome, sometimes excessively cruel.

Andy ‘Ninja’ Hylton, 32, an alleged robber caught with two accomplices attempting to enter a grocery shop in Grange, Hanover on April 15, was chopped and stoned to death. His accomplices escaped the mob.

Dinall was tied to the bull he allegedly stole. The animal was allowed to drag him through the rocky rural hillside for some time before the residents ended his life.

Even in hindsight, rural Clarendonians insisted that he got what he deserved.

While those who spoke to the Sunday Observer on a visit to Thompson Town/Wanstead area in the first week of May all denied being present at the time of the killing, of knowing who participated, and even knowing what happened, many were willing to testify to Dinall’s dubious character.

“Him a tief! Him lucky! Him shoulda never bury inna no church!” said an elderly woman in a bright floral dress, as she walked along the side of the road some distance from Thompson Town.

“Dat man go prison fe tief people ground (crops) already,” said a farmer in Wanstead, who claims to have lost three goats, worth about $5,000, shortly before the latest cow-stealing incident.

“Him is a tief, yes. People all ’bout yah so know say him a tief, too,” said the man, who refused to give his name.

The Mocho Police confirmed that Dinall was a known thief who, at the time of his death, was wanted on several counts of praedial larceny.

But all that is besides the point, says Superintendent Knight, whose area of responsibility includes Wanstead, Thompson Town and Mocho.

“If you’re not careful, people become insensitive to the action of these mob killers, but it is murder,” he said.

“It is illegal, and if persons are found culpable they will be brought before the courts like anybody else.”

In reality, however, no one will likely be held or charged for Dinall’s, Hylton’s, nor any of the other nine mob murders, although entire communities know who the perpetrators are.

“The policy of the police is to investigate each case of homicide completely, but you must understand that separate and apart from collecting the necessary scientific evidence, the eyewitness evidence is not forthcoming,” complained assistant commissioner Keith ‘Trinity’ Gardner, a career cop and commander of the Area One police division, which covers the parishes of Trelawny, St James, Hanover and Westmoreland.

Gardener’s division has recorded five mob killings and a beating since the start of the year – two in Hanover; three in Trelawny, and one in Westmoreland.

“Nobody has been arrested to my knowledge for any mob killing, but that is not to say that the investigations are not continuing and that suspects are not being targeted,” said Gardener.

The assistant commissioner said his cops make little headway on investigations because whole communities refuse to say what they know.

Criminologist Dr Marlyn Jones explains the wall of silence, saying many people actually believe that the ‘justice’ meted out by the mob is appropriate, and see it as a means of protecting themselves in situations where the police have failed them.

“We seem to equate justice and punishment … and if that punishment does not include the formal justice system, then it shows that people have lost confidence in the system,” said Jones, a Jamaican who lectures at California State University in Sacramento.

When persons have lost faith in the system, says Jones, there is a tendency to practice and accept vigilanteism.

“If the perception is that nothing will happen to the alleged perpetrator, individuals will try to exact their own form of justice, and to ensure justice is done, they will not think twice about exacting the punishment,” said Jones.

Dr Orlean Brown-Earle, psychologist and assistant professor of graduate studies in the counselling department of Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, says mob rule tends to manifest itself among the uneducated and uninformed, as evidenced by the fact that most vigilante killings take place in rural and impoverished communities where people do not have an understanding or appreciation of how the justice system works.

“When people are educated they are better able to develop and appreciation of processes, because they can understand the need for the process, but when people are undereducated or uneducated, they will behave like that, because they do not know better,” said Brown-Earle.

Not only have people lost faith, she says, but due to the influence of the media and television, many Jamaicans have become impatient with the time it takes for the delivery of justice.

“Not that we shouldn’t expect things to occur in a timely way,” the psychologist swiftly clarifies. But some people, she says, have been socialised to expect ‘TV-justice’.

“A lot of people have no idea of how the judicial system actually works, and their only exposure to the system is when they watch television shows where they see crimes committed, investigated and prosecuted in 45 minutes,” said Brown-Earle.

“We’ve been socialised to expect that everything will happen in a minute. But real life is not TV, and the proper delivery of justice doesn’t happen in 45 minutes.”

In Wanstead residents say they have been let down by both the police and the courts.

“We live peaceful here, and because nutten nah gwaan, de police no come yah so,” said one farmer, who owns cattle but also has a small ‘ground’ of vegetables and tubers.

Another tells of cases of praedial larceny reported over time to the police, saying that the thieves are never caught nor the stolen goods returned.

“You see why we haffi deal wid dem (suspected thieves) when we hold dem?” he asked softly, pushing the tip of his machete into the soft red soil.

Knight, however, claims that there is a system in place in his division.

“The police cannot be everywhere at the same time, so we have widely-publicised meetings in these communities,” said Knight.

“We advise people of crime prevention methods and we ask that they be vigilant and report the presence of strange vehicles or people in the community. We also give out our numbers – both numbers for the station and cell phone numbers for officers – so that the people can call and report these so we can respond.”

campbello@jamaicaobserver.com