All language subtitles for Lords.of.the.Mafia.with.Robert.Stack.S01E09.Jamaican.&.Caribbean.Gangs.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

From destitute
beginnings in Jamaica

created one of the
most feared drug gangs

in American history.

He is responsible for
thousands of deaths.

His impact is felt even today,

continuing war against drugs.

Lester Coke created an empire,
an empire built on fear.

In the annals of organized
crime, violence is not uncommon.

Brutality is often a tradition

with origins that can be
traced back centuries.

In the 1980s, however, a new
crime organization took hold.

Born of the drug trade
unrestrained by ancient custom,

the Shower Posse brought havoc

not only to its native Jamaica,

but across the United
States as well.

At the top of the organization

stood the most feared
Posses out of them all.

Lester Lloyd Coke.

In less than a decade,

Lester Coke's Shower
Posse rose from obscurity

in the political
unrest of Jamaica

to prominence is one of
the most feared drug gangs

in American history.

And in that same decade, the
FBI, the DEA and the ATF,

fought together in an
unprecedented battle

to bring down Lester
Coke, and in doing so,

raise the stakes in the
widening war against drugs.

To most, Jamaica's
a vacation paradise,

birthplace of reggae music,

a land of unique
art and culture.

The qualities that
bring millions of
tourists to the island

make it an enchanting
destination.

But there's another Jamaica,

a complicated land
with a tragic past.

This was a Jamaica that
created Lester Lloyd Coke.

Coke grew up in Tivoli
Gardens, a poor community

on the outskirts of the
Jamaican capital of Kingston.

His early life was spent in
this cramped tenement yard.

As many as 10
families lived here,

each limited to a single room,

with the entire building
sharing one bathroom.

He came from the world
of the sufferers.

Those sharing a life of extreme
poverty and desperation.

Well, the typical childhood

of a
youth in Jamaica is a
very frightening one

in the sense that many
of that generation

was simply not able to have
access to high schools.

I mean, their schooling would
end at the age of 14 or 15.

It would mean then
that just housing

would be a serious problem.

Getting food on a daily basis
would be a serious problem.

Many of these people did
depended on remittances

coming from abroad.

I mean that really
sometimes determined

whether they survived
or did not survive.

And of course, growing
up in those communities

with the level of violence,

you really had to be
tough in order to survive

and just very
difficult to survive

if you didn't develop a
certain inner toughness.

While
researching for her book

on Jamaican Posses,
author Laurie Gunst

became intimately familiar

with the people and
the spirit of Jamaica.

I came to realize
that the main sound

that I remembered from
Kingston's ghettos

was the sound of
children crying.

It is really weeping
and wailing and crying

that I remember most of
all from those streets.

That and the hot sun
beating down and the hunger,

it's a destitution that
is almost impossible

for an American to understand

because in this country,
we always have hope.

It's a huge country.

There's always another frontier.

There's always a place to go.

In Jamaica, there's
nowhere to go

unless you can
escape from the rock.

Unless you're one of the tiny
lucky few who have a visa

and can get to
the United States.

Otherwise, for you,
there will be no hope.

Like so
many of his generation,

young Lester Coke found
hope in American movies,

captivated by the interracial
embrace between actors

Jim Brown and Raquel Welch in
the 1969 movie "100 Rifles".

Coke would adopt the
film star's name.

In Tivoli Gardens he
was the new Jim Brown.

I don't know him as Jim
Brown, I know him as Bye-Bye

because that's the
name we call him.

When he was a little
boy going to school.

The boy that
Taylor Egbert Edwards

knew as Bye-Bye offered no
hint of his future path.

I never even seen
him even fight a boy.

I never seen him do
nothing like that.

I know him as a clean man.

I used to make his pants

he was a little boy
going to school.

So we were associate
when he was a small boy.

Quiet, nice youth growing
with us on Milk Lane.

Brown began
to learn a trade.

He was a welder, a cabinet
maker, and a locksmith.

His neighbors saw him as a
good, hardworking young man.

A man looking for
an opportunity.

But in time, his
ambition would lead him

to a criminal career.

Achieving for him the dream of
many of the poor in Jamaica,

the freedom to escape.

The Jamaican people have
had a very difficult history.

It's a history that
is rooted in slavery

and in colonialism.

But the Jamaican people
are also very imaginative,

very creative, very aggressive,

and very willing to
resist oppression.

One of the unique features
about slavery in Jamaica

is that almost every five years
there was a major rebellion.

And I think that there is
something in the Jamaican spirit

that makes us willing
to resist oppression,

now that might manifest
itself in different forms.

What you have in Jamaica
is the third world democracy,

struggling to accommodate
itself to a very harsh reality,

which is extreme
poverty of the majority

and the very great wealth
of the very, very few.

That's not a situation in
which democracy thrives.

In 1962, the
world was on the brink

of a third world war
when Soviet missiles

were placed on Cuban territory.

In a tense showdown,

the United States demanded
their immediate removal.

Finally, the Soviet
Union acquiesced,

from then on the United
States considered

the entire Caribbean
an important frontier

in the East West struggle.

So what happened was that
Jamaica began to be drawn

into the orbit of this struggle

and her politics
polarized accordingly.

So that by the
time Michael Manley

became prime Minister in 1972
and articulated socialism

as the path his
people's national party
was going to follow,

and Edward Seaga
emerged as the leader

of the Jamaica Labor Party,

and he was the significant
force on the right side.

That is the right wing side.

Politics in Jamaica
polarized very sharply

along these two lines.

And that meant that as far as
the ghettos were concerned,

there was gonna be
increasing polarization

between the two parties
and increasing violence

as both sides enlisted their
paladins, their gunfighters

to control vast areas of
Kingston's ghetto downtown.

Basil Wilson,

provost to the John J
College of Criminal Justice

has written extensively
on the political history

of his native Jamaica.

And one of the
things that emerged

is a battle for
scarce resources.

So the party in power tended
to be a low income housing

and distributed that
housing to their supporters

and politicians vying for power

would politicize
particular communities

to be able to provide those
communities with contracts,

with low income housing, with
other niceties of government.

And I think that led to
highly politicized communities

where elections then became
a life and death struggle.

And the level of this
warfare is almost impossible

for an American to understand
because it involves strategies

and tactics such as burning
people out of their homes.

If there's an area
that's known to be packed

with supporters of one party

and you're in the other party
and you wanna unseat them,

you simply torch that
neighborhood by night

and shoot at the firemen

as they're trying to
put out the blaze.

And when the blaze is over,
you bulldoze the rubble

and build a housing scheme
as it's called in Jamaica,

a housing project,

and you pack it full
of your own supporters.

Because the construction trades
in Jamaica were so corrupt

and were so tied
into the politicians.

And because the tribal
warfare downtown

often consisted of burning out

entire neighborhoods
in downtown Kingston,

the contractor had a
particularly lucrative tie

to the two political parties

because when you were
a contractor and an
area was burnt out

and needed to be rebuilt, if
you had ties to a politician,

you would be the
one he would call.

So Jim Brown had
come up fairly well

in West Kingston
by the mid 1970s.

He was a well-known
figure in Tivoli Gardens,

which is Seaga's constituency
in West Kingston.

He was actually a contractor

and he was very much an
up and coming enforcer.

He wanted to get involved
as Seaga's right hand man,

and he was pushing himself

up through the ranks of
West Kingston gunmen.

Politics is the
key thing, factor.

You see, because we
stand up for one thing.

We had forces that
tried to fight that.

Give you a hard fight.

And we had to make sure
we keep those forces out.

Devin Clark
was born on Milk Lane,

the same street where Jim
Brown spent his early years

You definitely
have to have somebody

to make the place what it is.

Where you can sleep
with the door open.

You can do anything like that.

And that was the
kind of man he was.

What was happening on the
streets downtown in Kingston

was a growing fascination

with the Hollywood silver
screen and primarily the outlaws

and cowboys and bandits
that came out of Hollywood

in the 50s and
60s and early 70s.

All of these movies
really captured the
Jamaican imagination

and the gangsters who
were by then up and coming

in the ranks of both parties

began to style themselves
after these cowboy heroes.

And that became the real
kind of emotional substance

that the gangs carried
to Kingston's poor.

In 1980, a pivotal
national election in Jamaica

was a culmination of
the political unrest

that had shaken the
foundations of its government.

The radical divisions
between Michael Manley

and Edward Seaga
led to disaster.

The 1980 election in
Jamaica was a bloodbath

in which perhaps as many as a
1,000 people lost their lives.

The level of terror in 1980

was unlike anything Jamaicans
had ever experienced before.

To anybody who had a grudge
to settle in Kingston

or anywhere else in the Allen

hoped to get
themselves recruited.

Most of the gunmen
wanted to fire shots

for the Jamaica Labor Party

because it was already
well known by that time

that the Jamaica Labor Party

was the one favored by the
United States and the CIA.

As expected, Edward Seaga
and the Jamaican Labor Party

were swept into power,

a power that extended to one
of its strongest supporters,

Jim Brown.

With Seaga's victory,

Brown emerged not
only as his bodyguard,

but as a leader
in Tivoli Garden.

So that when the
election was over,

what you had was
victorious gunman

of whom Jim Brown was
the most important.

He emerged at the top
of the heap after 1980.

And losing gunman
on the PNP side,

who got the message very quickly

that they had better
get out of the island

if they wanted to live.

So that was really the
1980 election in Jamaica

that initiated the exodus of
the Posses to the United States

because once that
election was over,

there was only room in Jamaica

for a few of the
victorious Posse dons,

it was only the ones at
the very top of the heap

who were very closest to Seaga,

who were going to really be able

to parlay the work
they had done for Seaga

in the 1980 election into
continuing a lucrative life.

Though Jim Brown,
as don of Tivoli Gardens

was already earning a reputation
as a man to be feared,

he was still considered
a hero to his followers.

To them, he was living the
Hollywood screen legend

of the American West.

The lone misunderstood gunman

achieving good against all odds.

He was the person
who decided to stand up

for the cause of the
community and put himself out,

sacrifice himself for
we in other community,

The Don would be synonymous
with that of a godfather.

The don basically is the
leader within the community.

He provides the protection

and he tends to
be a major figure.

A champion, yes, champion

because he is a
champion for the people,

the people in West Kingston.

He respected the people

and the people gave him
the same amount of respect.

And we love that, you know?

As much as law enforcement

will look at the dons
as being criminals,

within the community, the
dons are seen as leaders,

as community activists,

as people who
provide the community

with certain basic necessities.

So I think you have an
interesting contradiction there

as to who is looking at the don

and who is interpreting
what the don is doing,

and whether the don is
benefiting the community

or is in fact being
detrimental to the community.

A good man but if
it comes to the test,

you know, a good man can turn.

Several things
happened to Jim Brown

after the 1980 election.

One of them was that
as Seaga's bodyguard,

he had what was basically
diplomatic immunity.

He could shuttle back
and forth with Seaga

or on his own between Jamaica
and the United States.

The other thing was
that after 1980,

Ronald Reagan was
in the White House

and America really stepped
up its war on drugs abroad.

In the case of Jamaica,

what this meant was American
military and USAID funding

for ganja, marijuana
eradication in Jamaica.

And it became increasingly
difficult for Jamaicans

to get their product
off the island.

So men like Jim Brown, who
had contacts with politicians,

who had contacts on the
wars in West Kingston,

which are within the
area that Seaga controls

became crucially important
to Jamaica's growers

because they could
no longer attempt

to get their drugs
off the island.

What Jim Brown did was
to basically leapfrog

the Jamaican marijuana
connection into
the United States

using his connections in
Miami, Toronto, Washington DC,

New York, and Los Angeles,

and keep the money flowing
in to Jamaica's growers

for whom marijuana was
the only game in town.

It was Jamaica's only cash crop.

This was a
real story of Jim Brown

and his criminal organization
called the Shower Posse,

the Shower of
ammunition Posse members

with unleash against riffles.

They began as brutally
forces of political will.

They would soon be ruled
by an even greater force,

a worldwide demand
for illegal drugs.

The Shower Posse
entered the US narcotics

traded at a critical time,
usage was at an all time high.

And the drug war in
the United States,

though heavily funded
and widely promoted,

continued to be ineffective.

Shower Posse by any other name

had really resolved
itself into an entity

by the time of
the 1980 election.

Jim Brown was
already at the helm.

As Seaga's bodyguard

he was the top ranking
enforcer in Kingston.

But it really wasn't
until after the election

when all of these
gangsters on both sides,

all of what Jamaicans
called the Friars,

the small chickens, were
basically skittering
out of Jamaica

to try to make their fortunes
in the United States.

That Jim Brown saw that
the real money lay up here

in the burgeoning
crack cocaine trade.

Jim Brown,

along with his second in
command, Vivian Blake,

already had connections in New
York, Washington, and Miami

to make the Shower
Posse an important force

in the sale of crack cocaine.

Jamaican sort of
storefront operations,

old marijuana, reggae
records, vegetarian food,

Vivian Blake and Jim Brown
saw that they could parlay

these connections in Jamaican
communities across the country

into very lucrative
crack cocaine trade.

At the same time,

they also had their own
Jamaican product, marijuana,

that they could sell.

And what basically happened

by the time crack hit the
streets in the United States

was that the drug
lords, the Colombians,

particularly the Cali Cartel,

which had a special relationship
with the Shower Posse,

it's been said that the Cali
cartel handpicked Jim Brown

and the Shower to be its
street level middlemen

in the United States.

The Colombian
cartels in a lot of cases

in certain cities have
better market penetration

than Burger King.

If you don't believe me,
ask the next cop you see.

He will tell you that
he can find drugs

or drug users or drug dealers
probably within a few blocks

of where you're standing
right at that very moment.

They were bolder
than the rest.

They had come from an island,

it must be remembered in
which the police force

routinely commits
between one third

and one half of the
island's homicides.

That's a staggering total
when you think about it.

So these were gangsters
who were perfectly willing

to violate the
most important rule

that the underworld
has ever known,

which is don't kill cops.

Jamaicans do not
abide by that rule.

They were perfectly willing
to kill police officers

and they were perfectly
willing to shoot anybody

who was in the way.

They thrived on violence

and they were quite
willing to use it.

And this made them ideal
street level enforcers.

Jim Brown and the
Shower Posse were thriving.

In Jamaica he was at
the height of his power.

When the neighboring community
of Rema posed a threat,

it was Brown who
led a reprisal raid

in which 12 people
were murdered.

Though there was
a public outcry,

he was never brought to justice.

Instead, the government
seemed to expand his ability

to move freely to
and from Jamaica.

For Brown business was good.

Crack cocaine, UCJ grown
to epidemic proportions

in the United States.

Law enforcement so
far was ineffective.

The body count attributed
to Shower Posse violence

continued to rise.

According to the
United Nations.

the drug market internationally

is somewhere around
$400 billion a year.

Which puts it ahead
of the oil business

and slightly behind
the arms trade

as number two in the top three

industries on the planet today.

That money is going tax free

into the hands of some of the
worst people on the planet,

and they are using that money
to strengthen themselves.

The United States authorities

had no idea who Jim Brown was.

He was shuttling back and forth
between Kingston and Miami.

And almost as soon as he got
here, got to Miami in 1984,

he perpetrated a
multiple homicide

in a crack house in Miami,
in which five people,

one of them pregnant woman who
knelt and prayed for her life

while he executed her,
five people were killed.

And speaking of dominance,
this is the way you do it.

This is the way you
get your name known

on the street in the drug trade,

is by being willing
to perpetrate these
kinds of homicides.

It was only after the 1984
crack house slangs in Miami

that federal law
enforcement authorities

in the Metro Dade
Police in Miami

realized that Jim Brown

and Lester Lloyd Coke
were the same person.

March 30th, 1985,

Shower Posse members open
fire on 300 reggae dancers

at the Fireman's
Benevolent Association Ball

in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

One man is killed,
three others injured.

The body count from Posse
violence continues to rise.

The thing that really
snafued the Posses

in the United States and
brought alcohol, tobacco,

and firearms into the
prosecution of them

was their pension for
interstate firearms trafficking.

They became very good
at buying guns in Ohio,

Virginia, and West Virginia.

Those were their
three favorite states

and ferrying them up by
car to New York, Boston,

wherever guns were needed
for Posse operations.

At that point, Jim Brown
was also sending firearms

back to Jamaica.

In 1984 the Shower did
send down to Jamaica

an enormous shipment of firearms

that wound up on
the Kingston Boards

and someone was tipped off.

And so the person who was
to claim it never did.

When they opened the barrel

and found these high
powered weapons,

this was the first
time that Interpol,

the International
Police Organization,

was called in to try to track
the source of these guns.

And it was discovered that
some of these same guns

that had been sent in this
barrel back to Jamaica

had been used in homicides
in the United States.

And it was really that shipment
of guns to Jamaica in 1984

that first alerted
international law enforcement

to the presence of the Posses.

July 3rd, 1985,

Posse Vana strikes
down an innocent child.

A 6-year-old Miami girl on her
way to buy an ice cream cone

is killed in a gunfight
between rival Posses.

The Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms

was really the
first federal agency

to realize what the Posses were,

or even if there were Posses,

because law enforcement
on the state level

began to turn up homicides
and firearms trafficking.

And it was when
they began to see

all of this gun
trading going on,

that they turn to the
Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and Firearms,

because that's
really ATFs purview.

Law enforcement now
aware of the growing threat

began a unique effort
to eradicate Brown

and the Shower Posse.

You know, there's always
been a tremendous rivalry

in this country between
municipal police departments

and federal agencies.

Between the police and the
FBI, the FBI and the ATF,

and then of course the
Drug Enforcement Agency,

which is relatively new.

In the case of the Posses,

for most of these
successful prosecutions,

they put their rivalry
on the back burner,

and that's what
enabled them to win.

You know, ATF says, "I don't
want DEA getting in my hair."

And DEA says, "You know, I
don't want ATF on my territory."

And in the case of these gangs,

in order to successfully
prosecute them,

the inter agency rivalries
went by the board.

I think the most,
the most exciting

and interesting thing
about busting the Posses

as far as American law
enforcement was concerned

was that as an ATF
agent in New York

told me these guys
were really bad.

And we knew that if we
wanted to take them out,

we were going to have
to drop our rivalry.

Everybody started
basically to become aware

at the same time.

Interpol realized
that the Posses

were shipping
firearms to Jamaica.

They called in ATF's help.

Various state and
municipal law enforcement

realized that there was
this Jamaican presence

that was very violent,

that had a great
deal of firepower

that they had never seen before.

So it really all began
to happen 84, 85.

That was really when the
United States authorities

awoke to the presence
of the Posses.

The New Yorkers
office of the FBI

began to research the need for,

and the possibility
of creating a squad

dedicated to targeting Jamaican
criminal organizations.

The research found that from
the late 70s into the 80s

and throughout the 80s,

the Jamaican organized
criminal groups

were becoming more and
more of a presence,

both here in New York
and across the country.

And the Shower Posse was one
of the largest Posses ever

to dominate the New
York criminal landscape.

The Shower was
really, I think, the
only Posse of it today

that deserved to be called
Jamaican organized crime.

The very top was Jim Brown

and his right hand man, Vivian
Blake, who legend has it,

had a scholarship to play
soccer at Columbia University

and left to sell drugs.

Vivian Blake was
educated, he was polished.

He was the son of a man

who had been in the
People's National Party

with Norman Washington
Manley in the 30s and 40s.

Jim Brown was sort of a
ghetto ruffian, if you will.

And Vivian Blake had the charm
and the connections uptown.

They were the real leaders.

The Shower had various
trusted henchmen

all over the United States,

but they all did report to
Jim Brown and Vivian Blake.

And it was a much more
centralized organization.

It was probably
really the only Posse

that you could give the
name of organized crime to.

I have heard it
said that organized,

that Jamaican organized
crime is an oxymoron.

That it should better be called
Jamaican disorganized crime.

Because the truth
of the matter was,

as any federal agent will
tell you that Jamaicans

never had the kind of
omerta bond of loyalty

that the mafia did.

When American law enforcement
was able to arrest

a few of the Posse
members in various states

and various locales,
they found that these men

were often so frightened
and so willing to cooperate

in return for lighter sentences,

that it was much easier to
break apart these gangs.

Once you roped in one
or two of its troops

or its workers, they
would sing operas

for law enforcement
about the operation.

The Jamaican Posse didn't have

a strict code of silence
among its members.

What it did was to
make up for that

was practice an extreme level
of violence and intimidation

and simply not out of honor

did people not talk but out
of fear they did not talk.

And I think they made
up for a long history

of not talking
about the activities

as some of these
traditional groups did.

They in a very short time,

established a similar
code through fear

and through the extreme
level of violence.

I think that in part, that
was a conscious effort

to establish that kind of code
in a short period of time.

And they did that through acts
of extreme want and violence.

Perhaps the
most violent of all

the Shower Posse members with
its own leader, Jim Brown.

He was
someone who was feared

and feared because
of the violence that
both he could bring

and the people around
him could bring.

He surrounded himself
with violent people,

extremely violent people.

Where there is a gun
culture in Jamaican society

that there is a
fascination for guns.

And of course, one
of things about guns

is that when you put guns
in the hands of poor people

or [indistinct] use, it
is a form of empowerment

and it gives them a sense
that they have control

of life and death.

And so one of the things that
has emerged in the society

when you examine
the poor communities

is that there has been
a proliferation of guns.

Other Posse members
I have interviewed

and spoken with numerous
other members of other Posses

who at times dealt with
Shower Posse members,

including Jim Brown.

And it was always a somewhat
intimidating experience,

even for some of these people

who were fairly
violent themselves.

I pay you good money, I
take care of, you know that.

I put food on your table.

They always knew
when they were going

into some kind of
transaction with him,

and personally or with
his people around him,

that they had to be very careful

because of his reputation
that preceded him.

Well he's a man,
if you mash his corn

he's gonna mash back your corn.

And when he's mashing your corn,

he'll mash the whole corn field.

I can tell you that.

While Vivian Blake

ran the Shower
Posse's US activities,

Brown controlled
operations in Kingston.

To his followers, he
was larger than life.

A Robin Hood who used
criminal proceeds

to fund community centers

to pay for local
children's school tuition

and even to pay
for burial suits.

What you can say
about Jim Brown

was that if you were a
supporter, you adored him,

and if you were an adversary,
you were terrified of him.

He was obviously ruthless.

It will never be known
how many people he killed.

Certainly, well upwards of 20,

if you just count the
homicides in Jamaica alone.

Men, women, children,
law enforcement,

it seemed that the Shower
Posse's violence had no limits

and that no one
could stop Jim Brown.

Jim Brown was arrested in 1984

after the homicides in Miami,

and he was deported
by the immigration

and naturalization
service back to Jamaica,

where he was promptly set free

because as Seaga's
right hand man

and one of his
principal enforcers,

he was what Jamaicans
call an untouchable.

Meaning that the law would
never lay its hand upon him.

So he proceeded to keep
shuttling back and forth

from Jamaica to the
United States after 1984

on various passports
and various aliases

until 1986 when he murdered

a mini bus driver in Jamaica.

And this was the
first and only case

that ever brought
him before the law.

By that time, the Posses had
become so violent in Jamaica

and in the United States
that there had begun

to be an outcry against
the untouchables.

And Jim Brown was
brought to trial,

but the predictable took place.

He was tried and acquitted,

and on the day that
he was acquitted,

his Shower Posse supporters
mobbed the street

in front of the
Jamaican Supreme Court

and bust shot,
shot off their guns

to show their joy
at the verdict.

Law enforcement
kept its sights on Jim Brown.

The Rico or Racketeer influence

and corrupt organization statute
allowed federal officials

to pursue the leadership
of the Shower Posse

for the crimes of its soldiers.

Jim Brown's days, it
seemed, were numbered.

American law enforcement
was beginning to feel

that go up against these
gangs [indistinct].

There had been so many
homicides by that time

attributed to Jim
Brown and the Shower

that the alcohol, tobacco and
firearms, the DEA, the FBI,

the New York Police Department

and the Metro Dade
Police Department

felt that if they
could get Jim Brown

back to the United States,

they could prosecute
him and win.

Continuing pressure
from the United States

and ongoing violence on
the streets of Kingston

finally force a
Jamaican government

to take Brown into custody.

An extradition
process was initiated

to send him back to the
United States to face justice.

As the assault on
the Shower Posse

and other Jamaican
gangs continued.

The Shower Posse
may have been a victim

of its own success.

It had grown to be
a very large Posse.

The Shower Posse
became very large.

With the advent of crack
cocaine coming on the scene

it created huge amounts
of cash for these groups,

a high profit margin.

And the cash resulted
in internal feuds.

More people wanted
more of the cash.

The Posses at that time

had a very vertical
organizational structure

where the people at the top

are the people that
benefited the most.

And the people in the middle

and at the lower ends
didn't benefit too much.

And with the advent of
this huge inflow of cash

from the sale of crack cocaine,

it created a lot of problems

within the Posses
and the Shower Posse.

A large Posse like that

and internal strife
kind of came into play

and splinter groups
started to form

and members started to
relocate to other areas

where they thought
they could establish

their own crack
cocaine business.

US authorities
continue their assault

on Jamaican Posses.

Robert Chacon recalls
one important raid.

December 6th, 1990,
a coordinated effort

fed by the New York
office of the FBI

in conjunction with the New
York City Police Department,

the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms,

the State Department,
the Immigration Service,

and numerous other state and
local and federal agencies

executed simultaneously
32 search warrants,

mainly in Brooklyn, New York,
but also in Albany, New York,

Long Island, New York,
and Dallas, Texas.

The search warrants
targeted numerous locations

known to be used by the Posse,

used as either
residences or warehouses

for cash and guns and drugs.

Numerous Posse members
were arrested that night,

taken into federal custody.

Automatic weapons were seized.

Large amounts of
marijuana, cocaine,

and heroin were also
seized that night.

The message was clear,

the crime and violence
of the Shower Posse

and other Jamaican gangs
would be met with a full force

of American law enforcement.

Jim Brown, meanwhile
wasn't giving in so easily.

He fought
them all the way up

to the British Privy Council,

which is the court of
last resort for Jamaica.

And he appealed the extradition

to the British Privy Council,

which ultimately in
1992 denied his appeal.

Which meant that Jim Brown
was going to be extradited

to stand trial in
the United States.

In February,
1992, US Federal Marshals

arrived at Kingston's
General Penitentiary

to take Jim Brown back
to the United States.

But before they
could take custody,

Brown was burned to death
in a fire in his cell.

Though there is
no hard evidence,

some believe they know
why Jim Brown was killed.

Edward Seaga knew
that if he were allowed

to go back to the
United States and talk,

he would tell the
federal authorities

everything he knew about
his connections to Seaga

and the Jamaica Labor Party,

and the ways in which
the party had aided

and embedded the
Shower Posse's exploits

in the United States.

Whatever the cause,
the fire in Kingston

brought to a close
Jim Brown's life,

but not his puzzling legacy.

At Jim Brown's memorial,

former Prime Minister Edward
Seaga would call Brown

the protector of
Kingston's poor.

Thousands of mourners attended

what seemed like
a state funeral.

The question is often asked,

why these men were so violent?

Why they killed so many
in their own neighborhoods

in the line of duty?

Why are they seen as heroes?

Why are they seen as
Robin Hoods to the poor?

And the reason is
really very simple.

It's that throughout the 1980s

the International
Monetary Fund crack down

on debt ridden third world
countries like Jamaica,

and as the New World
Economic Order,

increasingly marginalized
countries like Jamaica,

the drug trade became
the only game in town.

These men, men like Jim Brown

and his Shower Posse
became the people,

the only people who
were putting shoes

on the feet of children,

who were putting roofs
over people's heads,

who when Hurricane Gilbert hit
Jamaica in the fall of 1988,

and the government
was so corrupt

that it never dispensed
any of the foreign aid

and the rebuilding materials

that various countries provided.

It was the Posses who
had the foreign capital,

who had the hard cash,

and to basically resuscitate
entire communities

so that when
somebody needs money

to pay child school
entrance fee,

they're gonna turn
to their local Posse.

That's who they're
gonna go to for help

because they can't go to
the government anymore.

These governments
have been so crippled

by the International
Monetary Fund

that they have
nothing to dispense.

So basically what you're seeing,

and you're seeing it
all over the world,

you're seeing it in Mexico,
you're seeing it in Columbia,

you're seeing it in Jamaica,

and all the Allens
throughout the Caribbean

is a withering away of
the power of the state.

You're seeing states
that are now so impotent,

so unable to really provide
for their own people

that the drug trade steps
in to fill the vacuum.

And that is why these men,

despite their violence
and their mayhem,

are seen as Robin Hood
heroes to the poor.

The thing that plagues
Jamaican society,

and it is something that
the society has to resolve

in the coming decades, is
how do you distribute wealth

much more evenly, much
more symmetrically?

A democratic society as
Jamaica cannot really maintain

social order effectively
or non corrosively

unless it can find a way

to include its
marginalized elements.

It's unemployed, it's very poor

into the benefits
of the society.

And that's a challenge
that come from the society

in the coming decades.

Law enforcement
can't reform society.

It is a holding action.

It is a temporary barricade

against the worst
proclivities of a society.

What we need to do in the
United States and elsewhere

is to find ways to
convince the public

to shy away from
those activities

which support organized crime.

Which organized
crime feeds itself.

You'll never eliminate
crime from society.

But what you can do
is that if you reduce

the level of marginalization,

you will invariably reduce

the level of violence
in a society.

Any society, if it wants to
reduce the level of violence,

if it wants to achieve a
state of wholesomeness,

if it wants to increase to
a high level of civility,

it has gotta find ways
in which young people

can be channeled in such a way

that they can become
productive human beings.

If you block those channels,

then you set up a system in
which people are reproduced

as gunmen, as hustlers,

as people with any
reverence for human life.

US authorities attributed
over 1,400 murders to Jim Brown

and the Jamaican Shower Posse

in the few short
years they thrived.

Both explosive world
of the drug culture

and the unprecedented
efforts of law enforcement

effectively dismantled
this dangerous new threat.

As long as a demand for illicit
drugs continues however,

Posses and other drug
gangs will always exist

to serve the customer.

For law enforcement,
the fight continues.

I'm Robert Stack.

Thanks for joining.