Hey Karl! Maybe the Bud policy should have been

[Lazie]

implemented as soon as he was caught!

Man freed of shooting cop

Michael Reynolds, the man who was accused of engaging the police in a shoot-out in Stony Hill nearly three years ago, has been freed by the Gun Court.

Supreme Court Judge Roy Jones agreed with the submissions made by defence lawyer Peter Champagnie that the prosecution’s case was weak.

In freeing Reynolds, the judge said he was not satisfied with the evidence relating to identification.

Reynolds, a 32-year-old labourer of Stony Hill, St Andrew, was freed of charges of illegal possession of firearm, shooting with intent, and wounding with intent.

Policemen testified that on October 2, 2007 they were on patrol along Stony Hill Road when they signalled a motorcar to stop.

The driver disobeyed and they used the patrol car to block his path.

A woman and two men who were in the motorcar disembarked the vehicle and the men engaged the police in a shoot-out.

The policemen said during the shooting incident, they recognised Reynolds as one of the gunmen.

Reynolds was held by the police on March 11, 2008 and placed on an identification parade.

He was pointed out by one of the policemen, who said Reynolds was wearing cornrows at the time he was identified.

In his defence, Reynolds denied being involved in the incident with the policemen, and called two witnesses who testified that he had never worn his hair in cornrows.

[Mosiah]

Karl nuh realise dat all a wi is bud. Some a dem a bud fi get shot cause dem a carry illegal gun. But Karl want di res a wi fi just tun sitting duck (bud!), at the mercy of those with illegal guns.

[Muadib]

Di only time my get laser sighting innah mi eye, is a Policeman on di odda end.. at least him did fiyah a warning shot fuss (and manage tuh nuh kill nuhbaddy)

Is a good ting him nevah sneeze...

[Karl]

Karl nuh realise dat all a wi is bud. Some a dem a bud fi get shot cause dem a carry illegal gun. But Karl want di res a wi fi just tun sitting duck (bud!), at the mercy of those with illegal guns.

Mosiah as it stands -
-- If you have a gun on you that somehow the cops know about it ...not knowing if it is legal or illegal will have the cops take action(s) that has your life in danger

--- If you have a gun on you and somehow the criminal knows about it...yuh a BUD!

So the law-abiding gun toting citizen is BUD to the law and BUD to the criminal! Seems to me commonsense to have only one side thinking of you as BUD...and if the society is unarmed that criminal may just be unafraid and only bax yuh up!

...then again some criminals under a disarmament policy where only the security forces should have arms may rid themselves of guns? ...after all is said and done, it is they only who would be BUD to the security forces. They just might think having the shoe on the other foot...i.e. being the only BUDs in town may just give them pause.

...not to mention that the cops would not be able to so readily trot out "we were engaged in a shootout with 'John Tom'. One dead! Two escape! one firearm recovered!" ...where unarmed persons are accosted.

Clearly the discharge of a firearm by a member of the security forces would, as it was in the distant past, require credible and irrefutable explanations or great risk of being slapped with a charge and suffering the consequences of the full force of the law.

DISARM an mek man wid gun who a nuh memba a di security forces BUD...mi seh!

[Mosiah]

you'll recall that i agree with you, in a perfect setting. but we are far from that. we have policemen selling/loaning arms to individuals.

let's break it down to a more manageable setting. take for instance, the QUAD nightclub, a place where they say no firearms are allowed, at least for civilians. what if some bouncer allows in one or two people with firearms? this happens all the times at clubs, maybe not QUAD, where many of the patrons become sitting ducks, at the mercy of the gunmen. that is a more scary proposition than if they had allowed everyone to take their guns into the establishment because the good people have a false sense of security, feeling everyone in the club is firearm-free. if we lived in a country where guns were already a rarity and gun crimes even less so, then your bud policy would work. not in this present society of ours.

so, i still say, "ban the guns", but i will never implement any "bud policy" any time soon.