Dear Editor,
While the storm of speculation rages around Owen Ellington, as a mere private citizen I want to ask a few questions of the public at large.
1. How many previous commissioners of police gave notice of their intent to demit office?
2. How many commissioners of police over the past 20 years have survived in office more than six months after an election?
3. Wasn’t it only this year that important civic groups were calling for Ellington’s resignation?
4. After 34 years in the force and 5 years in one of the toughest jobs in Jamaica, doesn’t Ellington have the right to take back what is left of his life?
5. Aren’t we always clamouring for people to “do the right thing and resign” when things go wrong? Should he not be congratulated for stepping aside to allow his name to be cleared?
Well, all the speculations and calumniators have striven mightily in the fields of rumour, scandal and malice and have come up only with “guilty by reason of friendship” or with sly limits of unknown crimes stopping just barely at the border of defamation.
If this is how we reward service to the country it is small wonder that good men remain silent and that commitment and conviction give way to expedience and self-serving behaviours.
Who would it benefit if Owen Ellington’s reputation is destroyed and the good work that he has done discredited?
Elizabeth Brown
Kingston 8
