THE local rights group, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), yesterday called for the resignation of Police Commissioner Owen Ellington, saying he has failed to keep the murder rate under control; failed to improve the police clear-up rate for murder; and has presided over the highest cumulative rate of police fatal shootings ever seen in Jamaica.

“It is time for him to go,” the group said in a press statement yesterday.

Said JFJ: “In the past year the rate of fatal shootings has been significantly above that of last year and we have seen three months in which more than one person a day was killed by the police, culminating in the killing of 36 persons by the police in the month of October. Far too many of these killings occur in circumstances which suggest extrajudicial killings by police, including the killing of Kavorn Shue in Mountain View and of Tenisha Hamilton in Morant Bay in 2012, the killing of Neville Boyd in June, and Romarco Wilson in October of 2013. These are just a few of the over 400 persons killed by police since the start of 2012. Now, even more troubling are the reports of the beating to death of a teenage boy, Ashanie Clarke, in Sandy Bay, and the grievous injury inflicted on another by policemen because they refused to stop at a police checkpoint. This follows the unconscionable brain injury inflicted on Kamoza Clarke, again by policemen, while he was in their custody.

JFJ said that the failure by Ellington to control men under his command, and the failure to reduce the rate of fatal police shootings by proper planning and control of operation were unacceptable. “We hear no new solutions for this unacceptable use of force by his men coming out of the commissioner’s offices, and his weekly bulletins to those he leads about human rights and the proper use of force are perfunctory. This failure to ensure accountability for the use of force by members of the JCF, by itself, warrants the resignation of Commissioner Ellington,” JFJ said.

In addition, the group said that Commissioner Ellington has failed to bring about a sustained reduction in the murder rate, which has begun an increase after the reductions that followed the extradition of Christopher Coke because of the lack of strategic management in crime prevention and community-based policing, which the group said have taken place under Ellington’s leadership over the past three years.