KINGSTON, Jamaica — Government Senator Marlon Morgan has urged members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) to remain focused, professional and motivated amid what he describes as a sustained media campaign aimed at undermining their crime-fighting achievements.

In a statement on Sunday, Morgan accused a section of the press of using police fatal shootings to detract from what he said was a historic reduction in murders in 2025, which he noted had fallen to a 31-year low.

“There has been a vulgar and misleading campaign by a segment of the press, as evident in numerous news reports, commentary and editorials, including cartoons, to diminish the tremendous success of the JCF in reducing murders in 2025 to a 31-year low,” Morgan said. He argued that the coverage subtly and unfairly attributes the decline in murders to an increase in police fatal shootings.

“As a law-abiding citizen I urge the police to remain relentless and professional in discharging their duties and not be distracted or discouraged by the reckless and misleading campaign of their detractors,” he continued.

Morgan said it was “misleading and exploitative of public sentiment and legitimate concern” to peddle a narrative that frames police fatal shootings as “unlawful” and “unjustified”. He described attempts to link the reduction in murders to police killings as a “vulgar weaponisation of superficial statistics”.

Highlighting the dangers faced by law enforcement officers, Morgan questioned what alternatives critics expect police to pursue when confronted by heavily armed criminals.

“When confronted by brazen and marauding gunmen who are prepared to avoid being brought to justice and paying for their crime, including the mandatory 15-year minimum sentence for gun possession, what do we expect the police to do? We cannot expect the police to sing ‘kum-by-yah’ or exchange pleasantries with criminals confronting them with deadly, and sometimes superior, firepower,” the senator said.

Morgan argued that public discourse should move beyond simply tallying police fatal shootings and instead focus on whether individual incidents were justified.

“The issue should not be the mere number of police fatal shootings, but whether those incidents were lawful and justified,” he said.

He, however, maintained that well-thinking Jamaicans want the police to carry out their work professionally and in accordance with their use-of-force policy.

“To the extent that Jamaica has an Independent Investigation Commission (Indecom), ongoing body-worn camera procurement and deployment, as well as internal JCF investigative and disciplinary processes, neither the media nor the public should be pre-emptive of due process, as a police fatal shooting may well have been warranted. It is for the well-established accountability mechanisms that are in place, and continue to be put in place, to determine whether or not a police fatal shooting was justifiable,” he said.