Imagine a St Lucia where police officers are heroes who children look up to instead of monsters they fear and resent.

Imagine what a victory it would have been for the Royal St Lucia Police Force if officers had dragged alleged cop killer Jacob Owen Jules in to face justice. Even if the director of public prosecutions and the courts screwed up the whole thing with their bungling, the police could confidently point to the fact that, in spite of meager resources and manpower, they did their job. They could forever point to the fact that while everything in their flawed human nature urged them to blow his head off and put another bullet through his chest (professional assassination style), they obeyed a higher calling, regardless of the consequences. In the war on crime, they would have conquered the moral high ground, sacrificing vengeance for justice.

Keep imagining it for a moment.

Now get back to reality. Police did not drag Jules in to face justice. They put a bullet in his head and one in his chest.

Now, on the mean streets of Castries, they are calling the police killers.

They are questioning whether the police force only encourages more lawlessness. They are psyching themselves up for more confrontation, rather than stepping back and letting things die down. They are echoing Jacob Jules’ controversial televised comments: “They have guns, we have guns, too!”

The killing of Corporal Vincent Peters might have sparked off the police outrage that led to the death of Jacob Jules. But the killing of Jules has triggered off an avalanche of repressed anger against cops, who, through no fault of their own, spend more time harassing ghetto youths than exposing and taking down the real criminals in the high class neighbourhoods of the island.

What are the ghetto youth and bad boys so angry about? What gives them the right to demand a higher standard of action from the police than they demanded of themselves? Why the hell should the police give them any better treatment than Jacob Jules gave to those officers he allegedly shot? Are the killers only crying because a killer got killed?

It seems hypocritical for the nation’s bad boys to lament the actions of the police which led to the death of a man who killed a cop and wounded another in what looks like a failed attempted robbery. Doesn’t it?

According to the ordinary rules of street justice, Jacob Jules got what he deserved. He who lives by the gun, dies by the gun, and all that.

Jules made what amounted to a dangerous threat to law enforcement officers of the island. When he made the threat, he was already known by police as a man who would used a firearm against police. This was not just some idle threat. There were circumstances and the circumstances all militated against Jacob Jules.

Then, of course, Jacob made good on his threat. By all appearances, his very short career as a cop killer was incidental to another crime. But the logic of street justice doesn’t care with that.

On the mean streets, when a person threatens or disrespects you, you sometimes have no choice but to take an eye for an eye. Do unto others before they do unto you and all that.

When Jacob Jules made his threats against police, he was already a hot commodity. He had been to jail several times. Cops around the island could recognize him and knew him on a first name basis even before HTS made him famous among civilians. If he had made such threats against another bad boy, there would be war. He would have to look over his shoulder in the daytime and sleep with one eye open in the night. One lapse and he could be a dead man, for making less vociferous threats against another bad boy.

And then, the cycle of violent recrimination would begin.

A Ghetto Fairytale Last year’s summer of gang-related killings shows how far recrimination in the criminally infected parts of society can go. In fact, the entire history of peace in independent St Lucia is punctuated by incidents of retaliatory violence by drug-related gang members against each other.

Perhaps one of the best examples over the last couple of decades of how far out of control mean street justice goes is the story of Jahmice and Ti Guy.

Once upon a time, Jahmice and Ti Guy were like best friends. They were both denizens of Conway, they both played basketball, representing the island at the highest level and they both got sucked into the cocaine culture that is the engine of most criminal activity in the Caribbean. They both drank expensive champagne and changed their women like they changed their socks. For a time, they had the best of both worlds. The two partners were riding high.

Then one day things changed. Ti Guy apparently disrespected someone and Jahmice, taking offence, confronted Ti Guy in a most vociferous fashion. Ti Guy, restraining his impatience and exasperation, calmly shot him several times, in a way that showed that while he didn’t mean to kill Jahmice, he was willing to cripple him permanently. The end result was that Jahmice lost one leg below the knee and walked on a prosthetic for the rest of his life.

He never played a real game of basketball again. He still drank champagne but it probably never tasted the same.

Jahmice never seriously sought the assistance of police in getting a higher brand of justice for Ti Guy’s actions. Instead, Jahmice bided his time while he nursed his wounds. It took years and years for the opportunity to present itself, but one day while Ti Guy was waiting at a red light on Jeremie Street, Jahmice was ready. The end result of that was Ti Guy was crippled as a result of spinal injury. Ti Guy spent the rest of his life sitting in a window, looking at the life he once loved waving cynically as it passed him by.

But street justice is not like court justice which either cuts its losses or files for appeal. Street justice is an escalating cycle that ends only with the sacrifice of blood and the burial of bodies. It wasn’t over. As others took up the task of getting revenge for each of the crippled men, the body count mounted, one by one.

The short version of the story is that in the end one of them finally managed to kill the other. It doesn’t matter who killed who because in the end the last man standing also died in a hail of gunfire. Now both Ti Guy and Jahmice reside at Choc Cemetery. And they lived happily ever after.

The Law of the Gun The story of Ti Guy and Jahmice is the most elementary lesson in street justice. Like other incidents of street violence, it proves that he who provokes and attacks will be attacked and probably shot dead. This, unfortunate to say, is what happened to Jacob Jules.

Jules also broke a cardinal rule of gunmen.Both police and professional bad boys know that the first rule of the gun is “Never threaten to use a gun. Never talk about what you’re going to do with a gun. Either do it, or don’t.”

Talking about what you’re going to do with your gun is like talking about what you’re going to do with your penis. If you’re talking about it, you’re a joker.

Talk is cheap. It attracts the wrong kind of attention. Talk is for the few cops who really, really abhor the use of firearms and are desperately trying not to have to shoot somebody. Talk is for people who know that violent retaliation does not earn you enough respect to warrant going to hospital, cemetery or jail. Talk is for people who like life. In death ground, there is no talking. And those who talk only betray themselves and those around them.

On the mean streets, they are offended and concerned that the police let themselves be seen executing a cruel brand of justice that should be left to the lawless and indiscriminate. Even bad boys want a better brand of justice from the police. If it sounds unreasonable, think about this—what if all these lawless little thugs need is the kind of example their fathers never gave them? What if all they want is someone wise enough to teach them without beating the shit out of them? Is that so unreasonable?

Ghetto youth and bad boys may not think that what they need from police is a kind of collective father figure. But they do know that they do not want the officers of the law, who protect us all from all sorts of evil, to be operating at the same level of brutal vicious dirtiness that the street does.

They want law enforcers who are wise enough to know that real justice demands action and example. Real justice is a patient teacher who makes great sacrifices even for those who adamantly refuse to learn. Real justice cannot afford to reduce itself to recrimination because once it does it is not real justice anymore. The peace that comes as a result of these kinds of lawless actions by the police is worthless because it is a peace born of fear and will propagate hate, resentment and rebellion until it is either overthrown or exposed for what it really is. The society cannot afford for its law enforcers to be forced to descend to the level of criminality. Even bad boys know that.

From the bad boys’ point of view, the police did the right thing. They snuffed out a known enemy and sent a message that they’re not going to put up with disrespect so easily anymore. The irony is that from the police point of view—the lawful, civic-minded view—what the police did was one of the worst things they could have done. They acted in a manner that was seen to be brutal and lawless. They squandered an opportunity to act like heroes.

It’s a lot to ask. No one is pretending that it is easy being a police officer in a world up to its neck in corruption. But if we think taking the hard line against criminals is working, we’re kidding ourselves. St Lucia used to have professional killers on its police force. These men were lauded as national heroes because of their skill in reducing the actual number of criminals with beating hearts. For decades they continued their war on crime, snuffing out the lives of ghetto boys like they were breaking eggs. But somehow, we are still inundated with crime. Their seemingly effective hard line tactics only contributed to the situation we are in now. It only served to make criminal hearts prepare more diligently for the onslaughts of law enforcement.

It only made the newer criminals more hardcore. The killing of Jacob Owen Jules does the same. And you don’t have to imagine it. It is real and it is coming soon to a neighbourhood, a street, a doorstep near you.