Dear Editor,

Five days ago, The Guardian newspaper carried a news item claiming that murders in Jamaica are down but activists are saying police killings have increased.

“Murder”, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is the deliberate act of unlawful killing, usually accompanied by malice, forethought, and the desire to kill — likened to criminal homicide.

While “killing”, on the other hand, is defined as the ending of a life, whether by accident, wilfully, or by way of any inadvertent occurrence. Therefore, all murders are killings but not all killings are murders.

In cases of the police vs citizens, killings by the police will, unless otherwise determined, invariably fall under lawful killing. In other words, if an individual who is currently charged with murder had carried out that killing under the official licence of the law, his status could be upgraded from a mere murderer to a defender of the law.

Perhaps morality is not the real basis that gives law its meaning if the law is indifferent to the motives of those who uphold it. For instance, is it possible that a policeman or policewoman could be propelled by the same desire to ‘murder di bwoy an him confederates dem’ as gangsters are entertaining to murder “puss, dawg, an everybody inna di vicinity”?

Difficult to say, but some may ask: If murders are down, why are police killings up? Whatever the case, it must be true that it does not belong to man who is walking to direct his own steps (Jeremiah 10:23).

Homer Sylvester

Elmsford, New York

h2sylvester@gmail.com