The New Yorker: »A Massacre in Jamaica«.

© GABE for FIRST Magazine

About one and a half years ago, the Jamaican police and army assaulted the neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, in West Kingston, hunting for the area don and alleged drug-lord Christopher »Dudus« Coke.

Now, The New Yorker looks back at the »Massacre in Jamaica«: Journalist Mattathias Schwartz lived in and around Tivoli for about three months, reporting his story on »Operation Garden Parish«, a story he builds around the fate of Radcliffe »Mickey« Freeman who was one of the seventy-three civilians killed during the operation.

Schwartz talked to residents, government officials, and sources close to the police searching for

[...] any evidence they might have showing that Freeman was anything other than a noncombatant who was intentionally shot and killed by the security forces. No one was able to provide such evidence.

However,

The question of Freeman’s innocence or guilt on May 24, 2010, wasn’t decided by a court, a journalist, or, most likely, anyone who knew him. It was decided by members of the security forces in Tivoli Gardens. None of them have spoken out about that day, and no court has compelled them to. It is therefore impossible to know what standards they applied to the question of who would live and who would die.

Read the whole article »A Massacre in Jamaica« here.

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