Dear Editor,
I listened attentively to the Acting Police Commissioner’s press presentation and instantly agreed in principle with many of the ideals of policing he eloquently advocated.
The problem is he evaded the parallel principles contended by the media on behalf of many of us in the public; as a media worker myself and also a member of a social organization with a social conscience I have a fair understanding of both perspectives.
The problem with the presentation of the Commissioner is that his ideals of policing cannot be translated into the functions of practice applied in the recent onslaught of death and torture visited upon the citizens of Buxton village over the recent weeks.
There are no witnesses from the inception of the Donna Herod incident that related that there was an exchange of gunfire; the reports were consistent that the police fired indiscriminately, thus killing Donna Herod. To deny this, Mr Commissioner, is to add insult to an unforgivable injury.
Then to the torture of Buxtonians Patrick Subner and Leroy Hamer. I have no doubt that this was an atrocity committed by the Guyana Defence Force as was reported, yet the police must accept procedural accountability as there are no reasons why suspects held by the police for a criminal inquiry should be handed over to army personnel for ‘questioning.’
This act of torture by the GDF and the following silence can only lead to the conclusion that there is a unit in the GDF which is prepared to break the law.
The Joint Services operation that left Orlando Andrews and Noel Andrews dead contradicts all that the Acting Commissioner would have us believe. Orlando Andrews was not armed at the time, so he could not and did not present a threat to the joint service unit that confronted him, yet they shot him with his hands in the air.
In the case of Noel Andrews, he was armed with a six-shooter, he fired into the air allowing what was said to be a wanted man to escape; he was shot and wounded, then dragged into a house, the six-shooter taken from him, then he was shot by joint service operatives. A person being wanted by the police does not entail mandatory execution or the severe battering that was inflicted on David Leander by the police that left him oozing from his ear.
This has happened to Afro Guyanese males in Afro Guyanese villages and districts, from the time the Target squad was reconstituted under Leon Fraser and Steve Merai.
We cannot pretend not to understand the constraints and limitations faced by the police force, the promises made to modernise the force and the lure of financial rewards from drug operatives because of the low salaries.
Yet savagery and murder cannot supplement the inadequacies; there are too many incidents of indiscriminate joint service murders and police shootings and irrational brutality like the incident with the Duncan brothers back in April of this year. One of these young men will not have the full use of the arm he was shot in, and what became of the policemen who committed this senseless act? I have no idea.
It seems this administration does not want an effective and professional police force, and now the GDF has allowed itself to be dragged into this mode of intimidation and traumatizing of suspects.
I have observed police pedestrian street patrols garbed in black autumn pullovers. Whose idea was this? With our tropical climate these young men face dehydration, the discomfort of overheating.
I’m amazed that the police management cannot recognise that dehydration produces reflex lapses and impairs judgment.
The Acting Crime Chief was correct to say that since the drug dealer Roger Khan has been out of the jurisdiction there has been a decline of drive-by murders, but he should have added Ronald Gajraj and the phantom squad.
These illegal police/GDF operations indeed require a swift and direct political interjection as Tacuma Ogunseye and Osafo Modibo implied.
This rude free-for-all must be harnessed because it has escalated.
The Commissioner must understand what is required is a distinction between gunmen, criminals, revolutionaries and the police force.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite