The grooms at Caymanas Park racetrack have been major supporters of my security team and myself for years. They are the major reason that I have survived 28 years of attempts by several technocrats to remove me as the security provider.

However, I did not always have their support. There was a time when I was hated, and fist fights at the various entry gates were a daily occurrence.

This was largely due to my attempts to instil law and order in a place where none existed before.

It could also have been that the younger, less mature me believed that the resolution to most conflicts was based on which person had faster hands and feet. I often wonder what happened to that version of myself and why he was so dumb.

One day the hostility came to a head. I was at court in Spanish Town. It was 1996 and the new courthouse was not yet in use, and the One Order gang had not yet burnt down the old one.

I got a call to inform me that the grooms at the track were rioting and the track was about to be burnt down. The unrest was based on a salary issue.

I rushed over there and told Aubrey Barr, a friend who worked with me, to meet me there. I knew I would need him, as it was going to be war, and he was the toughest man I had ever worked with. He would punch it out with Mike Tyson, if provoked.

When I got to the track it looked like an 18th-century movie. There were large groups of men with machetes, axes, and pitchforks roaming around and threatening everyone.

It didn’t take long for Barr and myself to end up in a stand-off, and it got bad. I was carrying a .38 revolver with six rounds and Barr wasn’t much better off.

Barr instructed me to stand with my back to a wall, as I was the focus of the grooms’ fury, and he took up a position to cover me. The grooms were two feet away, getting angrier by the second.

I could see where this was going: They would attack, we would shoot a dozen of them, and we would be overwhelmed and subsequently hacked to death.

Luckily, no one wanted to be shot and they backed off and no one was killed.

This was a great result, as I lived to raise three children. The groom who had the axe lived to prosper, and he became a race horse trainer. We’re friends to this day. His name is Smart, which I imagine reflects his decision-making on that Friday afternoon.

The one who had the pitchfork was called Lucky. He and I went to Boys’ Champs together every year for many years.

The one who had the machete once pulverised a man for attacking members of my family.

The deadly conflict that could have occurred did not because I didn’t fire and they didn’t attack, for whatever reason, and good sense prevailed.

Therefore, there was no retaliation against my workers because I shot no groom. There was no retaliation from my father, who would have gone crazy if I had been attacked and would have done things that everyone would regret.

The people involved were able to live good lives and even become friends.

This is a lesson about conflicts and the disastrous consequences that can result when they go south. As Commissioner of Police Dr Kevin Blake always says, “If you prevent the murders, you prevent the retaliations that are additional murders.”

The fight for a lower homicide rate begins with controlling and managing conflicts. So what’s the first step.

Consequences! People are quicker to draw blood in a conflict if they know there will be none.

Every wounding, murder, or assault must invite police action. This means several things. One is that it may involve arresting and detaining on intelligence, rather than on evidence alone. It may mean that the police may take action on minor issues that they would normally leave alone. It could mean that more time will need to be spent sensitising the populace on conflict resolution practices.

You see, the reason one brother will kill another over 10 cents isn’t because of the value of the money, but rather the disrespect of taking it.

The principle that motivates the action is the sentiment that, “Yuh tek mi tings, yuh diss me!”

We are a society that does not automatically respect each other. We respect who we fear, who is well-resourced, who we think much of. But it’s not automatic. It needs to be.

There is a process to change the culture of a people. It begins with leadership.

Our politicians shout and malign each other in Parliament. They call each other thieves without one shred of evidence. This is why I stay out of politics; because I don’t need to steal anything and if you call me a thief we are going to have a problem.

The police need to look into the current communication practices with inner-city youth. We shouldn’t speak to them any differently than we would our own.

The use of the term “boy” to address males over age 18 is belittling. The way we conduct body searches has to be careful and free from hostility.

The use of corporal punishment by teachers and parents needs to be controlled.

Sometimes we need to make a decision to not say anything that will hurt or offend anyone. Ignore the provocation of the taxi man and the windshield wiping entrepreneur.

Your reaction in front of children — being disrespectful to someone who knows no better — creates another person who thinks disrespect is a useful tool.

Most people you curse in the street are people you would likely not quarrel with if you met them at a political rally. So the conflict is being triggered not by personality, but rather by circumstance.

Every assault can result in a murder. This gets worse as it goes from stage to stage. Police intervention must occur at the first sign of violence. This will prevent murder.

If shots are fired but no one is hit, treat it like a murder. That one failed attempt will likely result in a retaliation that results in four separate murders as they retaliate, and then retaliate again.

Conflict control is homicide control.

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