And while we don't know if new Commissioner of Police Crispin Jeffries will be on that list, it doesn't matter because this definitely is his best week ever. After 36 years in the Police Department, he's finally become top cop. And a very well known one; there isn't a Belizean who doesn't have an opinion about Crispin Jeffries - in fact we'd venture to say he is the most well-known police officer in Belize. 

And he gained national notoriety during the unrest of 2005 - when Jeffries was the frontline figure - the deck master astride the listing ship of state, keeping balance as Belize walked the tightrope between mass chaos and a police state. Take the facts that phone, water and electricity services were disrupted in April of that year, that there were riots in the streets and swells of unrest from schools to unions amidst widespread rejection of the Musa administration...and you'll know that to be the man on the frontline, Jeffries had to be a confidence man.

And what made him the go to guy then makes him that same guy today - to a different administration but one that's trying to find an answer to a chronic crime problem that's unraveling the fabric of Belize's daily existence. And while the issue of Jeffries can be debated by moralists, social justice types and law and order types, for us, there is no debate, he is hands down the greatest performer in Belize's television history. You can have your morning shows, your KTVs, your evening news and all that...if you want a pay per view event, get a menacing Jeffries in front of an angry mob and we'd pay to watch it unfold. Many times we had a front row seat and Jules Vasquez looks back at the magic of those moments.

Jules Vasquez Reporting,
There are few images on TV so immediate, so shocking that they will make whoever's watching shake their heads in disbelief. And Crispin Jeffries has had more of those moments than anyone

[Crispin Jeffries in scuffle with female student and with workers in front BTL Compound.]

And while those moments will never be forgotten – and videotape will make sure of that - look beyond the heat and drama, to a single frame....and in a picture, anarchy can seem almost pacific, the players stripped of their momentum and charge, the wild hysteria of the moment flattened into a single frozen image, all the emotion and action compressed into a single frame.
And strip that frame of context and circumstance and you see in these images, a performer.  And if you don't believe that just watch the way Commander Jeffries high-stepped down the National Assembly stairs, it was more than an offensive, it was a solo, an operatic aria upon a stage of anarchy. In these moments, Jeffries is unruffled, almost regal, never emotional, the air of a thespian, and the presence of a star, an entertainer on a stage set by the media, watched by the masses.

Jeffries to Jules Vasquez: "put right in the face Jules, right in the face. You want to see it? Thank you goodbye."

 After all, what does the media thrive on?  Action. And Jeffries gave it to us, in heaping servings

Jeffries to Jules Vasquez: "Just go around."
Jules Vasquez to Jeffries: "That is unacceptable and I will not accept that."

So, we can forgive the cocky mis-projections whether in word...

Crispin Jeffries: "Watch how we will clear this easy."

So easy that three hours later it ended up in this. Like he said, a mis-pronouncement but there are bound to be mis-projections, as in this case when tear gas came wafting back into the House meeting. Through it all Jeffries - so often the subject of the crowd's ire - never blinked, never became outwardly angry, well maybe just once, very famously so.

[Jeffries removing media from City Center on election night 2006.]

But then, don't we all get emotional?:

Jules Vasquez,
"He is walking away and the little switch trips. And I have to say that because look at this, he comes towards our cameraman, we aren't even advancing. Alex Ellis our cameraman was standing still and Mr. Jeffries goes to him and simply arrests him for no reason. The man has the camera on his shoulder. This is a muzzling of the press. This is the systematic lunacy that Crispin Jeffries brings."

At the time I was angry because he arrested camera-man Alex Ellis for nothing at all really, but I see it now as just one more performance – things were starting to drag, he perked it up - not a lapse of reason, but a slowdown in the action, and we were brought into the show to liven things up, brought in to share the light and heat of center stage. But the point is we never took it personally, we were doing our job and he was doing his - both of us probably with too much zeal - and that it provided some of the best television theater ever was incidental....or was it central? Maybe we'll never know.

So, for now, ground control to Commander Jeffries, we will miss you on the frontline, through the scrum of batons, the crush and clatter of stones and shields, the haze of pepper spray, the canisters of tear gas...you may be commissioner now, but on those days of anger and agitation, you were the boss, brutal, calm, crazy and collected.

Pictures in that story were provided by Jeremy Spooner. Jeffries, the commissioner held his first commander's meeting yesterday at the Curl Thompson Building. He re-iterated his expectation of improved performance and renewed dedication.