Discrimination by cops while carrying out duties ??? ..........

While cops have their responsibilities to carry out they must do so without open stigma being displayed, the alleged lotto scamming activity is said to be also in the same sex community resulting in a crack down on a party at Club Heavens last weekend at a popular socialite's birthday party. The cops appeared on the scene with anti gay remarks blaring even as the article below that appeared in the Gleaner yesterday portrayed a clean crackdown procedures ignoring the actual sequence of events as since told to me by several upset patrons hours after being processed and released.

Here is the article firstly

Kenrick 'Bebe' Stephenson (right) awaits processing by the police while two cross-dressers strike a pose for the camera after they were detained by the police

Scammers Party In Drag

Several cross-dressers, some suspected to be involved in the illegal lottery scam, were taken into custody and a number of items, including motor vehicles, seized by the police yesterday during an intelligence-driven operation in St Ann which targeted scammers from western Jamaica.

Head of the Lottery Scam Task Force, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Leon Clunis, and his team raided a nightclub on the border of St Ann and Trelawny early yesterday morning and discovered scores of men dressed in women's apparel, some proudly displaying their get-up.

According to Clunis, two of the men held were wanted by the police.

They were identified as Kenrick 'Bebe' Stephenson, an alleged mastermind of the illicit lottery scam who was wanted for absconding bail, and a man from Kingston who the police did not name but said he was wanted for housebreaking and larceny.

Charges were also laid against a man in connection with a quantity of illegal drugs found at the club.

"We took in more than 130 patrons, and confiscated a number of phones, and about 15 vehicles, including Skylines, and we are presently sifting through to determine the ones we need," Clunis told The Sunday Gleaner.

"At this nightclub party, we thought that there were many females, but in reality there were not more than 11 females; most of them were males dressed as females," added Clunis.

"We have no interest in one's sexuality or sexual preference, we are dealing with crime and criminality in general. As long as it is committed, we are coming after you."

In May this year, Stephenson was charged with unlawful possession of property and abstracting electricity from the Jamaica Public Service Company.

The police were also probing his alleged involvement in the lottery scam after he was held by members of the task force during a raid in St James.

But Stephenson has reportedly failed to attend court, prompting the issuing of a warrant for his arrest.

proper documentation

"We are doing our jobs, and ensuring that what we do is properly documented," said Clunis.

"What is very important is that corporate Jamaica is on board and they have been giving us assistance in terms of intelligence and quick information to which we can respond."

In the meantime, Clunis disclosed that during an operation last Friday, another alleged major player in the lotto scam was arrested in the Santa Cruz area.

He was taken to a remittance service facility to collect some $250,000 which is believed to have been obtained through the purported sweepstakes.

ENDS

I was absent however in my capacity as a disc jock for events there but I have been kept abreast by some disgruntled members of the party who felt they were grouped with everyone else as guilty before proven Innocent or without any evidence to the effect.

Allegations such as:

Persons stigmatized as HIV  positive were searched with some cops wearing two pairs of gloves

Profiling and sexually inappropriate suggestions that the cross dressers be searched in a fondling manner

A patron while waiting to be processed had an asthma attack and was left to suffer for some time without any assistance until one officer intervened

Police officer on the crackdown operations had no numbers on their person as is required by law

The disc jocks on duty at the time of the event were ruffed up by the cops and one reportedly was hit on the head 

Veiled threats and suggestions that we are to die as homosexuality is wrong

Alleged verbal abuse by some members of the patrol with selected members of the party

Patrons felt rather uncomfortable as they saw what was described as hate in the cops eyes, the patrons were taken to the Trelawny All Purpose stadium for processing.

Yes, if there is evidence that lotto scamming is happening then do whatever in a legal and transparent procedure in nabbing the accused persons with the relevant evidence but to stop an entire event using typical homophobic and homo negative tactics especially on the strength of ACP Les Green parting shot as he returns to the UK that the gay lobby is embellishing calls of homophobia, SEE MORE HERE persons should be free to congregate and entertain themselves and to think the club is situated far from any populated areas in a bid to avoid interference and yet still we ended up with this invasion without a warrant or proper explanation upon entry as to the reason for the patrol and searches.

Also of importance is what is going to happen to those persons who maybe involved in this activity and now have been falling from grace, will they be made displaced and subsequently homeless adding to the already problematic set of circumstances including murder and internal strife with overlapping communities such as the hypermasculine types.

All the gains it seems we were making with the police and the interactions and cooperation have been eroded here just by the two most recent issues and the problematic homeless populations and the deaths is worrying to me and some influentials. Where do we go from here?

Peace and tolerance

Also see: Cross-dressers held at St Ann fete on the Observer site

also see:

CLICK HERE 

and a subsequent letter to the Gleaner as well: The Club Matter – Unprofessional Police Behaviour Must Stop

H