COMMISSIONER Dr.BLAKE, PLEASE HONOR BOBBY REDS! | A LEGACY JAMAICA MUST REMEMBER

Commissioner of Police Dr. Kevin Blake, tonight I am not speaking to you as a YouTuber.

I am not speaking to you as a commentator.

I am speaking to you as #2478, former Detective Constable Christopher Porter of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, St. Andrew South Division.

And I am speaking for a man who can no longer speak for himself.

His name was District Constable Sylford “Bobby Reds” Williams.

He was my partner.

He was my teammate.

He was my brother.

And on June 22, 2026, Bobby Reds passed away from natural causes.

His funeral will take place on Thursday, August 20, 2026.

Commissioner Blake, I am appealing directly to you tonight because I have been informed that Bobby Reds may not receive police funeral honours because he had retired.

And I respectfully say:

There are rules—and then there are exceptional men whose service demands that leadership look beyond the ordinary rule.

Commissioner, somewhere in Jamaica tonight, police officers are riding bicycles in communities as part of modern policing.

I want you to understand something about those bicycles.

More than three decades ago, in the trenches of St. Andrew South, when Hunts Bay was facing serious violence, robberies, murders and enormous policing challenges, Bobby Reds and I were among the men who helped pioneer bicycle policing at Hunts Bay.

We did not sit in air-conditioned offices and write a proposal about policing communities.

We got on bicycles and policed them.

We rode where criminals thought police could not reach them.

We entered communities.

We recovered firearms.

We confronted robbers.

We built relationships with residents.

We changed policing on the ground.

And today, one of the men who helped create that legacy is preparing to make his final journey.

So, Commissioner Blake, my appeal is simple:

Please do not allow Bobby Reds to leave this earth as though he merely passed through the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

He left something behind.

Give him the dignity he earned.

Give his family the moment they deserve.

And if the rules say no, Commissioner—

I am asking leadership to find a way to say yes.

Commissioner Dr. Kevin Blake,

I approach you with respect for the office you hold and with respect for the Jamaica Constabulary Force that I once proudly served.

This appeal is deeply personal to me.

I am former Detective Constable Christopher Porter, regulation number 2478, formerly of the St. Andrew South Division.

I was born and raised in Jones Town and Concrete Jungle, Kingston 12.

I knew what some of Jamaica's hardest communities looked like before I ever put on a police uniform.

And when I became a police officer, I did not suddenly begin looking at the people in those communities as enemies.

They were Jamaicans.

They were our people.

They were mothers, fathers, children, shopkeepers, taxi operators, students and elderly residents who deserved to feel safe in their own communities.

That philosophy shaped the kind of policing I believed in.

And standing beside me through some of the most important years of that journey was a man named Sylford Williams.

Most people knew him as:

“Bobby Reds.”

To others, he may have been District Constable Williams.

To me?

That was my partner.

That was my teammate.

That was my brother.

When I entered the Hunts Bay Criminal Investigation Branch environment, Bobby Reds was there.

Through the years when we were policing one of Jamaica's most demanding areas, Bobby Reds was there.

Through danger, uncertainty, long hours, confrontations, arrests, investigations and those moments when a police officer simply does not know what is waiting around the next corner—

Bobby Reds was there.

Commissioner Blake, policing creates relationships that civilians sometimes struggle to understand.

When two men repeatedly enter dangerous situations together, something happens.

You learn the other man's movements.

You learn his temperament.

You know when he is concerned before he says a word.

You learn when to move.

You learn when to hold.

You understand one another almost without speaking.

And, most importantly, you develop trust.

Because when things go wrong on the streets, rank becomes secondary.

The question becomes:

Can I trust the man beside me?

I trusted Bobby Reds.

And Bobby Reds trusted me.

That is why his death hurts.

But his death also forces me to ask a larger question:

How does an institution say goodbye to somebody who helped leave that institution better than he found it?

I understand that rules exist.

I understand that policies exist.

I understand that classifications exist.

I understand that there may be distinctions between serving members, retired members, regular constables, district constables and different categories of police personnel.

I am not asking Commissioner Kevin Blake to recklessly disregard JCF policy.

I am asking you to examine the spirit behind the policy.

Because policies establish standards.

Leadership deals with exceptional circumstances.

And I believe the life and contribution of Sylford “Bobby Reds” Williams present exactly such a circumstance.

THE HUNTS BAY WE KNEW

Commissioner, I want to take you back approximately 33 years.

Back to around 1993.

The St. Andrew South that Bobby Reds and I knew was not an easy policing environment.

It was an era of serious violent crime.

Murders.

Gun violence.

Robberies.

Bus robberies.

Communities where criminals sometimes believed that they controlled the streets.

Resources were stretched.

Police officers had to improvise.

We had to think differently.

We could not simply sit at the station waiting for the next report.

Crime prevention demanded that we get among the people.

And somewhere in that environment emerged an idea that looked simple.

A bicycle.

Today, seeing a police officer on a bicycle may not appear revolutionary.

But think about the policing advantage.

A bicycle can enter spaces that a patrol car cannot.

A bicycle gives an officer mobility without completely separating him from the community.

An officer in a motorcar can drive through a community.

An officer on a bicycle experiences it.

He hears people.

He sees what is happening.

Residents can approach him.

Children can talk to him.

Shopkeepers can alert him.

And criminals cannot always hear him coming from hundreds of yards away.

Bicycle policing gave us mobility.

Visibility.

Accessibility.

And sometimes—

the element of surprise.

My recollection, Commissioner, is that the bicycle initiative at Hunts Bay was pioneered at ground level by Bobby Reds and me, and that other members subsequently became part of what developed into the bicycle squad.

I am not asking anybody watching this program to accept history simply because Christopher Porter said it.

I am inviting the JCF to check its own history.

Go back into the records.

Speak with surviving members.

Speak with former supervisors.

Examine station records where they remain available.

Examine reports.

Examine photographs.

Look at the history of bicycle policing at Hunts Bay.

Because this is not about Christopher Porter getting credit.

This is about giving a dead man his flowers when he can no longer ask for them himself.

I am alive.

Bobby Reds is not.

If there is recognition to be given, give it to him.

WE DIDN'T HAVE BIG RANK

There is something else Commissioner Blake needs to understand.

We were not Commissioners.

We were not Deputy Commissioners.

We were not Assistant Commissioners.

We were not Senior Superintendents.

We were men at the operational level.

We were the ones dealing directly with what was happening on the streets.

And none of us needed stars on our shoulders to care about Jamaica.

Sometimes history remembers the person who signs the order but forgets the person who created the idea.

Sometimes institutions remember senior leadership but forget the constable who actually changed something on the ground.

I do not want that to happen to Bobby Reds.

Because there are police officers throughout the history of the Jamaica Constabulary Force whose names may never appear prominently in an annual report.

Their photographs may never hang at headquarters.

They may never become commissioners.

But Jamaica was safer because they showed up for work.

Those people matter.

Bobby Reds mattered.

THE BUS ROBBERIES

And Commissioner, there was another major issue that shaped our service.

Bus robberies.

People today must understand what bus robbery does psychologically to a community.

Imagine getting up early in the morning.

You worked honestly for your money.

Maybe you are going to Coronation Market.

Maybe you are traveling to work.

Maybe you're carrying school money for your children.

You step onto public transportation—

and somebody with a weapon decides that everything you worked for now belongs to him.

That is not simply robbery.

It creates fear.

People begin traveling while looking over their shoulders.

Drivers become afraid.

Conductors become afraid.

Passengers become afraid.

Criminals begin believing public transportation belongs to them.

Bobby Reds and I took that seriously.

Very seriously.

We wanted the criminals operating in our area to understand:

If you decided that robbing innocent passengers was your career, Hunts Bay police were going to make that career extremely uncomfortable.

We were aggressive about prevention.

Aggressive about detection.

Aggressive about gathering information.

Aggressive about pursuing offenders.

And based on my firsthand recollection of that period, our policing contributed substantially to suppressing the bus-robbery problem within the areas we were working.

I sometimes say we made some of those men find new careers.

That is said partly with humour.

But the principle underneath it is serious:

Law-abiding Jamaicans deserved to travel without becoming prey.

Bobby Reds believed that.

I believed that.

And we policed accordingly.

FIREARMS AND DANGER

Commissioner, our work was not ceremonial.

It wasn't photographs.

It wasn't public relations.

We encountered firearms.

Our team recovered weapons.

Some recoveries occurred even outside our immediate policing area.

The number of firearms recovered collectively during those years was significant.

And every illegal firearm removed from the street potentially represents a Jamaican who did not get shot with that gun.

That is how we looked at policing.

You don't recover a gun merely to increase statistics.

You recover a gun because somewhere there may be a mother whose child will never meet the bullet that firearm might have fired.

That is police work.

And Bobby Reds understood police work.

LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TEAM

Commissioner, time has been moving.

People are leaving us.

Detective Constable Kirk Palmer, one of our colleagues, survived being shot multiple times during dangerous police service.

Constable Carl Nelson eventually resigned.

Lincoln Cassell, who later rose through the ranks to become a Deputy Superintendent of Police, has passed away.

And now Bobby Reds is gone.

Every time another member of that generation disappears, another living chapter of JCF history disappears with him.

That is why institutions must preserve their history before the people who made the history are all gone.

There are young police officers today who may see bicycle patrol as just another operational deployment.

Some may have absolutely no idea who helped start it decades ago.

That's not their fault.

They weren't there.

But those of us who were there have an obligation to speak.

And Commissioner Blake, those who lead the institution have an opportunity to listen.

HE WAS “ONLY” A DISTRICT CONSTABLE?

And now we arrive at the part that bothers me deeply.

I have heard the suggestion that because Bobby Reds was a District Constable, because he subsequently retired, he may not qualify for the funeral honours that I believe his service deserves.

Commissioner—

please hear me carefully.

I do not use the words “only a District Constable.”

There was nothing “only” about Bobby Reds.

A criminal never stopped before confronting us and said:

“Excuse me, which one of you is the regular constable and which one of you is the district constable?”

Danger doesn't inspect rank.

Bullets don't inspect rank.

A gunman does not check your service classification before deciding whether you threaten his criminal activity.

When we went into dangerous environments together, we went together.

When we confronted criminals, we confronted them together.

When we recovered property, we recovered it together.

When we responded to the public, we responded together.

When Jamaica needed policing—

we served together.

I was a police cadet before becoming a regular member of the Force.

I never treated Bobby Reds as less than me.

Never.

Because his value to me was not determined by the administrative category printed beside his name.

I evaluated him based upon his courage.

His loyalty.

His reliability.

His knowledge.

His willingness to work.

His relationship with the community.

And whether I could trust him when things became dangerous.

On those measures—

Bobby Reds stood tall.

COMMISSIONER, THIS IS ABOUT WHAT WE VALUE

That brings us to the larger issue.

What does the Jamaica Constabulary Force value?

Only rank?

Or service?

Only position?

Or contribution?

Only where somebody finished?

Or what that person left behind?

Because hundreds of thousands of people can pass through organizations over generations.

Some perform their duties honorably.

Some do what is required.

Some become supervisors.

Some become famous.

But a smaller number leave behind an idea, method, program, culture or reputation that remains long after they have departed.

That is what we mean by legacy.

When I look at police officers riding bicycles in Jamaica today, I see more than bicycles.

I see Hunts Bay.

I see those early days.

I see young police officers trying something different.

I see Bobby Reds.

I see the people who believed community policing required us to get close to the community.

That is why this hurts.

A man leaves something behind—

then dies—

and somehow the discussion becomes:

“Does the policy permit us to honour him?”

Commissioner, sometimes a leader has to ask a different question:

“Is honouring this man the right thing to do?”

I AM NOT ASKING FOR MONEY

Let me make my request completely clear.

I am not asking for money.

I am not asking you to promote a dead man.

I am not asking for a statue.

I am not asking the Jamaica Constabulary Force to rewrite history based solely upon my word.

I am not even demanding that you agree with every detail of my recollection.

Investigate it.

Verify it.

Talk to people.

Open the records.

But Commissioner, time is short.

Thursday, August 20, 2026.

That is the day his family will gather.

That is the day friends will gather.

That is the day former colleagues will gather.

That is the day we will say goodbye.

After August 20, you cannot recreate that moment.

You cannot send an honour guard on August 30 and make it August 20 again.

You cannot present the respect at Christmas that should have accompanied his coffin in August.

There are decisions that can be corrected later.

A funeral is not one of them.

We get one opportunity to bury Bobby Reds.

One.

TO ACP GARY “BIG BOY” MCKENZIE

I have already spoken to ACP Gary “Big Boy” McKenzie regarding this matter.

And I appreciate that there may be procedures and chains of command involved.

I am not attacking ACP McKenzie.

I am not attacking the JCF.

I am appealing upward because the circumstances demand urgency.

Sometimes a matter reaches the desk of the Commissioner because only the Commissioner—or senior leadership acting with the Commissioner's authority—can look at the totality of a man's contribution and determine:

“This case deserves special consideration.”

That is what I am asking.

IF POLICY SAYS NO

And let us confront the difficult possibility directly.

Suppose somebody finds the policy and says:

“Porter, according to the rules, a retired District Constable in these circumstances does not ordinarily receive the particular honours you are requesting.”

Fine.

Then I respectfully ask:

What flexibility exists?

What ceremonial recognition can be authorized?

Can there be an honour guard?

Can uniformed representation be authorized?

Can the divisional command be represented formally?

Can a JCF tribute be presented?

Can the Commissioner's representative attend?

Can the man's service be publicly acknowledged?

Can the historical contribution of the Hunts Bay bicycle initiative be recognized?

If the precise thing I am requesting is legally or administratively impossible, then Commissioner Blake—

give this family the highest honour that your lawful discretion allows.

Don't simply say:

“No.”

Find the honorable version of:

“Here is what we can do.”

That is leadership.

TO THE YOUNG POLICE OFFICERS

And I want the young men and women currently serving in the JCF to pay attention.

One day your service will end.

I don't care what rank you hold today.

Constable.

Corporal.

Sergeant.

Inspector.

Superintendent.

Commissioner.

One day somebody else will sit in your chair.

Somebody else will drive the vehicle.

Somebody else will wear the uniform.

Eventually, the question will become:

What did you leave behind?

Did you improve anything?

Did you help anybody?

Did you make a community safer?

Did residents trust you?

Did younger officers learn from you?

Did you introduce something that lasted?

Did Jamaica benefit because you wore the uniform?

Those are the questions that matter after retirement.

Bobby Reds has answers to those questions.

THE PEOPLE STILL REMEMBER US

Commissioner, one of the most extraordinary things about my life today is that decades after leaving those communities as a serving policeman, information still finds its way to me.

People remember.

Parents told their children.

Children grew up.

Some of those children now have children themselves.

And somewhere in those generations the names survived:

Porter.

Bobby Reds.

That means something.

Police officers frequently complain that communities don't trust police.

So when a policeman leaves an area and people are still speaking his name decades later, study that.

Something happened there.

A relationship was built.

An impression was made.

Maybe we weren't perfect.

No policeman is.

But people knew we were present.

They knew we worked.

They knew criminals had reason to worry when certain officers entered the area.

And they knew law-abiding citizens had somebody to call.

That is part of Bobby Reds' legacy.

MY BROTHER

Now allow me to stop speaking as a former detective for a moment.

Let me speak simply as Christopher Porter.

Bobby—

I wish you were still here.

I wish we could sit down and laugh about the things that happened in those years.

I wish we could tell the young officers stories they probably wouldn't believe.

I wish we could ride through Hunts Bay again and look at how everything has changed.

I wish we could point to a bicycle patrol and say:

“Look where the idea reached.”

But life doesn't give us those choices.

June 22 came.

And you left us.

I cannot bring you back.

But what I can do is speak your name.

What I can do is tell people you were there.

What I can do is refuse to allow history to reduce you to a line in a funeral program.

What I can do is tell Commissioner Kevin Blake:

This man mattered.

COMMISSIONER BLAKE, IMAGINE HIS FAMILY

Commissioner, imagine Bobby Reds' family at that funeral.

Imagine what it would mean for them to look up and see representatives of the institution their loved one served standing there.

Imagine an honour guard.

Imagine uniforms.

Imagine that moment of recognition.

Imagine his children, relatives and friends understanding:

“The Jamaica Constabulary Force remembers him.”

That memory will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Now imagine the opposite.

Imagine hearing that after years of service—

after danger—

after contribution—

after helping to pioneer policing initiatives—

the answer was:

“He retired, therefore he doesn't qualify.”

You can understand why that would hurt.

Rules may explain that answer administratively.

But rules do not remove the pain.

That is why I am appealing to the human being occupying the office of Commissioner.

LEADERSHIP IS SOMETIMES THE EXCEPTION

Commissioner Blake, leadership is easiest when the rule already gives you the answer.

Anybody can point to paragraph seven, subsection three and say:

“This is what it says.”

Leadership becomes visible when the circumstances don't fit neatly inside the paragraph.

The question becomes:

Can we honour the policy while recognizing an exceptional contribution?

Can we preserve institutional consistency while exercising compassion?

Can we say:

“This is unusual, but the history justifies special consideration”?

I believe you can.

And I am asking you to do so.

CHECK THE HISTORY

Again, Commissioner:

Check my account.

Look into the origins of bicycle policing at Hunts Bay in that period.

Speak to surviving officers.

Find the old photographs.

Look for operational records.

Review firearm recoveries where records remain.

Speak to people who served St. Andrew South during that era.

Ask about Porter.

Ask about Bobby Reds.

Ask about the bicycle squad.

Ask about the bus robberies.

Don't honour him because I'm emotional.

Honour him because the evidence of his service deserves recognition.

And if after checking the records you discover that some detail in my memory after more than three decades needs correction, correct it.

I am comfortable with that.

Because the central truth remains:

Bobby Reds served Jamaica.

He worked beside us.

He faced danger beside us.

He helped police difficult communities.

He helped create something that endured.

And he deserves to be remembered.

A MESSAGE TO THE JCF

This is also an opportunity for the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Institutions build loyalty not merely by how they treat serving members—

but by how they remember those who have finished serving.

Young officers are watching.

Retired officers are watching.

Families are watching.

People want to know that after giving years of their lives to an organization, they will not simply disappear from its memory when their ID card expires.

Recognition says:

“We remember your service.”

It says:

“Retirement ended your employment; it did not erase your contribution.”

That distinction matters.

MY FINAL REQUEST

So, Commissioner Dr. Kevin Blake, from one former policeman to the man who now leads the Jamaica Constabulary Force, I respectfully make this request:

Please personally review the case of former District Constable Sylford “Bobby Reds” Williams.

Please examine his service.

Please examine his contribution.

Please examine the history I have placed before you.

And please determine whether an exception, special authorization or appropriate ceremonial recognition can be provided for his funeral on Thursday, August 20, 2026.

If full police honours are available—

please grant them.

If some technical classification prevents the full ceremony—

authorize everything that can lawfully and appropriately be provided.

Give his family something that tells them:

Jamaica remembers.

The JCF remembers.

Hunts Bay remembers.

And the men who worked beside Bobby Reds remember.

AND FINALLY...

Commissioner—

thousands of police officers have passed through the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Many served honorably.

But only a few leave a legacy that people can still physically see decades later.

Somebody watching this may see a police officer riding a bicycle tomorrow and think absolutely nothing of it.

I will see something different.

I will see 1993.

I will see Hunts Bay.

I will see a young Christopher Porter.

And somewhere beside me—

I will see Bobby Reds.

That is the man we are burying.

Not simply a retired District Constable.

A partner.

A public servant.

A community policeman.

An innovator.

A Jamaican.

A brother.

Commissioner Blake, policies are necessary.

But sometimes history places one exceptional case in front of a leader and asks:

What will you do?

Bobby Reds can no longer ask you for anything.

His voice is silent.

So I will use mine.

As #2478, former Detective Constable Christopher Porter, I respectfully ask you:

Please give my partner the police recognition he earned.

Let an honour guard stand for him if it can be authorized.

Let the uniform he respected be represented at his final farewell.

Let his family know that his years of service were not forgotten.

And when his coffin makes that final journey on August 20—

let the Jamaica Constabulary Force be there to say:

“District Constable Sylford ‘Bobby Reds’ Williams, your watch has ended. Your service has not been forgotten.”

Rest well, my brother.

We worked together.

We survived together.

We served Jamaica together.

And as long as I have a voice—

your contribution will never be erased.

Commissioner Kevin Blake,

please honour Bobby Reds.

Thank you.

#2478 Ex-Detective Constable Christopher PorterFormerly St. Andrew South DivisionJamaica Constabulary Force

Jamaican Young Police