interno white_Layout 1 19/10/15 09:45 Pagina 1
For my son Aleksandar
interno white_Layout 1 19/10/15 09:45 Pagina 2
interno white_Layout 1 19/10/15 10:12 Pagina 3
A WAH DO DEM K I N G S T O N
u
J A M A I C A
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
B O O G I E
interno white_Layout 1 19/10/15 09:45 Pagina 4
interno white_Layout 1 19/10/15 09:45 Pagina 5
A WAH DO DEM I was waiting in a back alley, all the way down the lane, in one of the sketchiest neighborhoods in Kingston, Jamaica. It was pitch dark, and it felt like I had been waiting forever. At some point, a guy wearing a creepy horror movie mask appeared from the dark carrying an M-16. Even though a friend of a friend brought me there, I was really nervous - you never know when things might turn ugly. After a brief introduction, I started taking pictures of the guy, roll after roll, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was the last night of my first trip to Kingston, and at that moment I knew I had to come back again very soon.
my friend started arguing. They went on and on, until a police truck arrived and the cops handcuffed him and took him away. You don’t want to get locked up in Kingston, so we called everyone we could think of, including their local priest, to see what we could do to get him out. We all came to the precinct, where he was being held, still handcuffed, in a little room behind the front desk. His wife was there with their son who was crying and asking to be with his dad. In the end, he was released after the priest vouched for him, but was eventually charged for insulting an officer.
u
u
My wife had been to Jamaica years before on vacation and stayed in a beautiful house off of the Blue Lagoon, so her first impressions of the country were much different to what we encountered during our first trip to Kingston together. Just after landing, one of the first things we saw was a bunch of police wearing bulletproof vests and assault rifles, yelling and pulling some guy out of a car. Then, driving by an open market, we saw people arguing and screaming at each other, everything was loud and chaotic, and the area looked like it had been carpet-bombed. The intensity of the place was insane. I was in for a wild ride. The next day, we were sitting in a nice café in a nearby fancy mall, when we thought it would be cool to take a walk and see the city, as normal tourists might. When we asked a friend to tell us where to go, she told us that tourists don’t really walk around in Kingston because it’s too dangerous. Before coming to Kingston, I didn’t really know what to expect, but it turned out it was going to be the perfect place for me…
During another trip to Kingston, I befriended some serious gangsters. While hanging out one night, the main guy asked me if I wanted to shoot from an M-16. Of course I accepted, it’s not something you get to do everyday. Plus, it was a sign they really trusted me, because in Kingston if the police catch you with a gun, they usually don’t bother making an arrest, they just shoot you.
u There are two roads that lead to Tivoli Gardens, both of them with police checkpoints. I was driving around with a couple of locals, and we happened to pass one of the checkpoints several times in one day. This raised some suspicions with the cops, so they stopped us at gunpoint, pulled us out of the car, frisked us, and searched the car. There was really no reason for it, so
u The last time I was in Kingston, some plain-clothes cops let me shadow them for a day. It was a rare opportunity to see things from their perspective, to experience first hand the harsh conditions they work in, risking their lives daily. We went to some really bad neighborhood where their colleagues were already searching some shacks and making arrests. They had located some guys who were wanted for robbery, and arrested three of them. It was weird to me that they walked them to the van without handcuffs. When I asked why they weren’t cuffed, one of the cops told me there was a mutual understanding with the criminals. They know what would happen to them if they ran. u Out of respect for all the people who appear in this book, there will be no captions, no names, no locations.
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 6
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 7
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 8
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 9
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 10
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 11
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 12
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 13
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 14
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 15
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 16
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 17
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 18
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 19
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:40 Pagina 20
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:41 Pagina 21
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:41 Pagina 22
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:41 Pagina 23
interno white_Layout 1 07/09/15 15:41 Pagina 24