A feared police commander known as “Rambo,” who led a commando-style team accused of multiple killings across Jamaica, retired on Saturday and said he plans to pursue an acting career.
Reneto Adams, considered effective but ruthless as commander of an elite, anti-crime unit, is a media sensation in this Caribbean nation who rarely appears in public without his signature aviator sunglasses, helmet and black combat gear.
Jamaicans often ask for his autograph, and local musicians have compared him in song to Rambo, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and Dirty Harry. He made his TV debut this year in the soap opera Royal Palm Estate, a love-and-intrigue-story based in Jamaica.
Adams announced that he was retiring after 41 years with the department, saying he had turned 59 years old — the mandatory retirement age for Jamaican police.
At a news conference on Saturday, Adams expressed some regret for a 2001 shootout involving his squad that left an estimated 28 people dead in the capital’s Tivoli Gardens neighborhood.
“The criminal elements have always tried to make this community hostile to the police,” he told reporters. “So for that, I am eternally sorry and in sorrow for the circumstances that took place.”
The Crime Management Unit that Adams headed was created in 2000 to combat rising violence in Kingston. A local rights group, Families Against State Terrorism, has linked his team to at least 40 extrajudicial killings.
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