To save face, on Sunday, December 4, 2022, the JCF performed a belated 21-gun salute at the grave site of murdered Police Corporal Oliver Mullings at Thetford Park Cemetery in St Catherine. Which begs the question, why was it omitted from the thanksgiving service?
A 21-gun salute is the highest tribute the government gives a fallen officer of the law or head of a country. But it was conveniently missing from Corporal Mullings’s Thanksgiving Service agenda on Sunday, November 27, 2022.
Trending in Jamaica News: JCF performed a belated 21-gun salute at slain cop’s grave site to save face.
On the day of the funeral, Commissioner of Police Anthony Anderson expressed his displeasure at what he rightly called a ‘glaring omission’ of the 21-gun salute. He characterized the incident as a letdown to the slain officer, his family, and the Jamaica Constabulary Force he gallantly served for 15 years. And he promised swift corrective action. The next day the Commission launched an in-house investigation to uncover who was responsible for the omission of the 21-gun salute.
It’s now one week since, and the public and the family of the slain cop are no closer to finding out what happened.
But strangely enough, on Sunday, December 4, 2022, the police showed up at the grave site of the slain corporal and performed a belated 21-gun salute. The is no precedence for this. I smell a dead rat, and it stinks to the high haven.
I genuinely think the omission of the 21-gun salute was a deliberate act. And it’s a disgrace and a black for the Jamaica Constabulary Force. And going back to the grave site a week later to perform a rite that the police should have conducted on the funeral date is even more troubling.
Because it suggests that somebody other than the Commissioner is running the JCF. Those who have served know that a 21-gun salute at a fallen colleague’s thanksgiving service is automatic. It’s like breathing oxygen. Therefore, I doubt that a member of the JCF would disrespect the dead and the bereaved family. Hence the order to omit the 21-gun salute from corporal Mullings’s thanksgiving service comes from somebody higher than the Commissioner.