Every well-thinking Jamaican, we assume, still feels a sense of outrage at the killing of woman Constable Crystal Thomas last month.

The murder of any human being is totally unacceptable, and the fiends who commit such acts must always be pursued, caught, and made to face the full force of the law.

That applies even more to the animals parading as men who turn their guns on women, children and the elderly. Those so-called men are really cowards, because only cowards would shoot defenceless people.

Therefore, the terrorists who hijacked the bus in which Constable Thomas was travelling and shot her deserve to be punished, and we condemn, in the strongest terms, their evil actions.

Our anger at this most heinous crime, however, cannot cloud our view of the folly perpetrated by Sergeant Raymond Wilson, the chairman of the Police Federation, at Constable Thomas’s funeral service on Sunday.

Blaming rights groups and the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) for Constable Thomas’s death is most disingenuous and irresponsible, especially coming from Sergeant Wilson, a leader who wields considerable influence in the police force.

Sergeant Wilson, obviously playing on the emotions of the congregation, asked what gave criminals “more right to life” than a police officer or “law-abiding citizens of this country”.

The answer, as he knows, is that no one has more right to life than anyone else. It is for that reason, as Sergeant Wilson should well know, that INDECOM was established. For what obtained, in terms of the behaviour of some members of the police force towards Jamaicans, before the formation of INDECOM was despicable, to say the least.

Extrajudicial killings, physical and verbal abuse of people were accepted as the norm by members of the police force — agents of the state whose job it is to serve and protect the people of this country.

We accept, and have always pointed out in this space, that the Jamaican police have a most difficult and dangerous job, as they encounter, almost daily, vile criminals who have no respect for the law and who place no value on human life.

But that does not give the police the right to go about the country shooting people, most times in instances when they are not challenged.

Readers will recall that the need for INDECOM arose from the fact that police excesses were being investigated by the police themselves, leading to public mistrust in what was clearly a serious conflict of interest.

We have, in the past, heard talk of policemen and women feeling demoralised because of INDECOM’s mandate. However, we hold that if those policemen and women were doing their jobs in the way they were trained they would not have to be concerned about INDECOM.

As it relates to rights groups, a few of them have done themselves harm by their overzealous concentration on police abuse while ignoring the pain inflicted on families and communities by gunmen.

That is an imbalance that they will have to correct. However, it’s a stretch to blame them for the actions of criminals.

Sergeant Wilson’s lobby for special transportation to take police officers home is worthy of consideration. He could have reiterated that need more forcefully without the diatribe about INDECOM.