Morning, Jamrock. Yard Report here from Kingston, processing the week the only way I know how — slowly, with black coffee, and with the grim understanding that the news will somehow get worse before I finish typing.

Let’s see what we’re working with today.

Jaii Frais: The Custody Clock Ticks Down

Popular vlogger Jaii Frais — real name Jhaedee Richards — has been in custody since Sunday following a shooting at the carnival after-party Big Wall. This morning, a Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court judge ruled that the police must either charge him or release him by 6 p.m. today.

Let me translate that into Kingston: a judge had to order the police to either do their job or stop doing it incorrectly. This is the state of things. A man was shot, has been recovering while detained, and has had to pay an attorney to get a court order to confirm that, yes, you cannot keep a person indefinitely while you figure out what to do with him.

His attorney Isat Buchanan is, at this point, the hardest-working man in Jamaica. Every time a high-profile matter comes up, there he is. At some point we will need to ask whether the rest of the Jamaican bar has just given up, or whether Buchanan has discovered how to clone himself.

The Trench Town Birthday: “We’re Tired of It”

A 29th birthday celebration in Federal Gardens, Trench Town, on Wednesday night turned into something else when police entered the yard, detained the celebrant, and — according to multiple residents — discharged high-powered weapons in the community.

A seven-year-old boy watched his father get taken away. Residents collected more than a dozen shell casings as evidence. There is a recorded phone conversation in which someone identifying themselves as a police officer appears to ask the detained man’s father about cameras — “weh di camera deh?” — the kind of question that answers itself if you know the answer.

The community’s response, printed in the Gleaner: “We’re tired of it.”

I have been a Kingston columnist for long enough to know that this is not a new sentence. It is printed, on average, three times a year. What is new, sometimes, is the casing count. Twelve is a lot. Twelve in a community, at a birthday party, with a seven-year-old watching, is the kind of number that is supposed to produce accountability. It usually produces a press release. We will see which it produces this week.

The Oil Question: Let Us Discuss Guyana in Five Years

Dr. Damien King of CAPRI has said publicly that he hopes Jamaica never finds commercially viable oil. He is an economist, and he used the phrase “resource curse,” and he was speaking specifically about what oil discovery does to institutions that are already fragile.

Asked about Guyana — which found oil in 2015, commercialized it in 2020, and is now growing at a rate that Jamaica has not seen since we were measuring growth in different units — King said, “Let’s discuss Guyana in five years’ time.”

I appreciate Dr. King’s caution. I appreciate him more than most columnists here would. But I will say this: Jamaica has not had the resource curse problem because we have not had the resource. What we have had is a different curse — the one where you spend sixty years watching other countries figure out what to do with their oil and you have nothing to argue about at the dinner table except who is leaving the Premier League.

Minister Daryl Vaz is seeking exploration investors. Drilling could start in 2028. If King is right, we will regret it. If he is wrong, we will not know he was wrong until we have already done the damage.

Both of these things can be true.

Dr. Hunter’s Suspension Overturned

The Medical Appeals Tribunal has overturned the suspension of neurosurgeon Dr. Roger Hunter, which the Medical Council of Jamaica imposed nearly a year ago. The Medical Council itself conceded the appeal should be allowed — they just wanted to retry the proceedings.

Let that sit for a second. The Medical Council suspended a neurosurgeon, held him out of practice for a year, and then, at the appeals tribunal, conceded that the suspension was procedurally flawed. A neurosurgeon. For a year. With a concession at the end.

I do not know whether Dr. Hunter did or did not do what he was accused of. I know that the process of figuring out whether he did took a year, took his practice, took his certificate, and resulted in a concession. That is not how regulators of medical professionals are supposed to work. It is how they have apparently decided to work.

Traffic Deaths Down 50% in March

One piece of genuinely good news: traffic fatalities in March 2026 were down 50% compared to March 2025. Seventeen deaths instead of thirty-four. Not zero, which is the real target, but half is half.

The Ministry will take credit. The new traffic cameras will take some credit. Drivers themselves should take some credit, if reluctantly. A 50% reduction in fatalities in one year is — genuinely, seriously — a result worth noticing. I will notice it now and complain about something else next paragraph.

Ernie Smith, RIP

Singer-songwriter Ernie Smith has died. He defined the 1970s airwaves on the island, and the PNP statement calling his music “deeply personal yet widely relatable” is — for once — accurate.

If you don’t know him, go find “Pitta Patta” or “Duppy or Gunman.” He wrote in the register of ordinary Jamaican life, observed with affection and a wry eye. That is harder than it sounds. Most people who try to write in that register end up writing parody or pity. Smith wrote neither.

May he rest.

That’s the yard for this Friday, April 17. Somewhere Jaii Frais is waiting to find out if he will be charged or released. Somewhere in Federal Gardens, a mother is explaining to a seven-year-old what happened last night. Somewhere Dr. Hunter is deciding whether to resume his practice or bill the Medical Council for a year.

Kingston does what Kingston does. We take notes.

— Yard Report