Dear Editor,
News editorial on Thursday captioned, ‘Conduct unbecoming’, I felt duty bound and inspired to share my recent encounter with a cop. By the way, I really hope this editorial hit the conscience of the many guilty miss-conducting themselves in public.
Tuesday afternoon at 4:25 pm I was a passenger in a car heading to Upper Corentyne. The driver was driving very, very slowly. For a moment, I became a little disgusted at his pace. Surprisingly, in the next few moments, we were stopped by Police Officer named ‘Walter’ in a car (number given) . The dialogue went like this:
Police: ‘U see deh, U hear meh, you see deh?eh? It 79 and this road limit is 65, come give meh yo license.’
The driver came out of the car, proceeded towards the officer’s car AND he made several pleas.
However, whilst the other officer started to prepare the ticket, Officer Walter had a ball trying to capture more law breakers in the most unprofessional manner. It would appear that the radar gun became his Christmas toy. He became furious when a fisherman who was merely traversing in his own corner, apparently obstructed his radar gun.
His dialogue was filled with indecent language and went like this:
‘Eh yo f++king fisherman, yo see s+++t block meh from catching this f+++king man. Wel, I tel yo, this f++king man yeh ‘
Now this left me to wonder and ask myself if an officer should behave like this in the public. Is this how they are supposed to behave?
I wish also at this time to seek clarity for the following: Is it acceptable for an officer to be drunk on duty? Is it possible for an officer who is out on duty with the radar gun to show someone else’s reading and force you to accept it as yours? How can I verify that the reading (radar) a cop shows me is really mine?
Are bribes legitimate?
The minister should make it necessary to have special panels to select officers who will be on the roads to perform their duties because their images will be tarnished if officers continue to behave in this manner. More or so, systems should be in place to ensure that the vehicle number should be captured at the same time when recording vehicles’ speed, to ensure that no doubts will arise when the reading is shown.
Yours faithfully,
(name and address supplied)
