KINGSTON, Jamaica -
we promise! yelled an officer, hand on holster. Now come on out!
A crowd of police applauded as the man was led away in handcuffs during the mock exercise. Among them was Erich Meier, an instructor with the International Committee of the Red Cross who was training the officers in nonlethal, crime-fighting tactics.
He was unarmed so there was no reason to use force Meier said. Negotiation is the key.
Twenty officers from Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago graduated in Kingston on Friday from the two-week Red Cross program, which aims to produce kinder, gentler policing in a region often stung by human rights complaints against law enforcement.
Since 1999, the Red Cross has trained about 100 officers throughout the Caribbean. About 1,000 more have attended Red Cross programs in Latin America at the invitation of host governments.
Jamaican police have one of the world's worst records for fatal shootings, according to Amnesty International. Police killed 133 people last year and 85 so far this year on the island of 2.6 million. In New York City, with a population of more than 8 million, police fatally shot 12 people in 2002.
Jamaican authorities argue that violent crime has doubled every year since independence from Britain in 1962. Last year, 1,045 people were murdered, including 16 police officers. So far this year there have been 657 murders, including six officers.
It's much more dangerous now Jamaican police Superintendent Steve McGregor said. There are people who won't think twice about shooting a policeman dead.
In Guyana, authorities are trying to restore public confidence in police after more than 130 fatal police shootings in the last decade. Crime is surging, with more than 260 murders since February 2002. Previously, there were less than 50 killings annually.
We can't go on like this
said Mike McCormack, co-president of the Guyana Human Rights Association.
Police shootings are a divisive political issue in Guyana, a country of 700,000 almost evenly divided between those of African descent, who mainly back the political opposition, and those of East Indian descent, who mostly support the governing party.
Most victims of Guyanese police shootings are black. Opposition leaders claim many shootings are racially motivated -
Meier said. Criminals are not the enemy. They are people who have gone astray and need to be arrested.
Many officers remain skeptical, sharing a widely held belief in the region that human rights activists are soft on crime. Last month, two officers were shot and wounded by a man who wandered onto a police compound in northern Jamaica and resisted arrest.
I think it's important that we assure officers that we're not putting them in a straitjacket
McGregor said. In an effort to be too balanced in observing the rights of suspects
we could overlook our own rights.
The Red Cross wants to prove that human rights and good police work go hand in hand. The goal is to improve police discipline, Meier said.
Local rights groups stress that training alone is not enough. They want to end a long-standing culture of impunity that sometimes allows officers to serve as judge, jury and executioner.
Few Jamaican officers are ever charged in killings. Guyanese courts have been backlogged for years with more than 200 alleged police abuse cases.
The situation is being taken too casually
McCormack said. The (Guyanese) government is imbuing the police with a false sense of rectitude that it's OK to behave this way.
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