The story under the headline 'John Doe' killed by cops' was not given much prominence in THE wednesday STAR. After all, it was just another incident of an alleged gunman killed by the security forces, something which happens with increasing regularity in Jamaica.

However, in this particular case, there was a striking reversal of what has, sadly enough, become the norm. The man was unidentified up to press time, but the AK-47 that he was allegedly carrying when he was killed was identified and its serial number, 83LD5193, carried in the newspaper.

It may seem nothing more than just another unremarkable coincidence in the unending cycle of bloody violence in Jamaica, but it does have implications for how we look at fighting crime here. Because, while the emphasis has been on stopping guns from reaching the hands of criminals, with the successes of the police reported in great detail as they happen, not much emphasis has been placed publicly on the shadowy, unknown gunman.

For if we can readily identify the gun, but not the gunman, it means that there are, quite possibly, more criminal elements than the small number of hard-core perpetrators who the police keep blaming for the spiralling crime rate. By now, or shortly, we do hope that someone will have identified the dead, alleged gunman, but that still leaves any number of wanted men who the police know only by a nickname or, which could be worse, several different names.

Identification - quick identification and then association - is one step towards fighting crime and too often the security forces are at a loss as to exactly who they have just taken care of.