Indifferent and complicit

The Office of Professional Responsibility of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has discharged its mandate in a manner in keeping with its name. Though the report on the horrific torture visited on a 15-year-old some time during the night of October 28 this year overlapped the deadline given for its release, it was made public as promised. It outlined the events of that night that will remain in the memory and perhaps the psyche of the child and if the correct interventions are not being made at the moment, will probably affect his future mental make-up and actions.
The report’s ugly details revealed that police officers attached to the Leonora Station – not those charged with committing the act, but others who knew – were truly indifferent. No one needed the report really to reveal their complicity. The tortured child was kept at the station for days after he was burned, during which time there would have been changes in shifts. Whoever was not there when the actual incident occurred would have become aware of it afterwards. And what happened? They closed ranks. There was no indication that any policeman/woman censured any of those said to be directly involved; none seemed to have been ostracized.
The report also detailed the brutality meted out to two other young men, suspected of having been involved in the murder of former regional chairman Ramenauth Bisram. And except for a lone policewoman who prevented one of her male colleagues from lashing suspect Nouravi Wilfred with “a piece of wood,” there were no interventions by anyone.
What this report has done is to bring out in the open Guyana’s worst kept secret – police officers routinely brutalise and torture suspects in order to have them confess to crimes. This route to “crime solving” sparks of laziness and ignorance; the majority of police officers are unwilling to do the investigative work they should do. No amount of training at the time of their admission and afterwards seems to have any effect on the callousness that has become such a part of them.
The fact that this method invariably results in cases being thrown out when they get to court seems not to matter one iota, which points to a level of apathy and disregard for the legal system that should have raised serious concerns a long time ago. Police officers must know that truly solving a crime is only completed when the guilty party has been successfully prosecuted; arresting and charging a suspect is just the beginning of that process.
The Ministry of Home Affairs’ “deep regrets” cannot begin to remove the huge black stain this incident has placed on it and on the GPF. Minister Clement Rohee and Commissioner Henry Greene should be hanging their heads in shame and they should be moved to take further action. Notwithstanding the recommendations made by the Director of Public Prosecutions for disciplinary action to be taken against the officers stationed at Leonora, some of which has already been done, the buck stops with these two gentlemen. Ultimately, it is their responsibility to ensure that the people under their watch behave in a manner that reflects the “Standing Orders of the Guyana Police Force.”
So there is no finality here, not yet. The assurance that the ministry will make every effort “to ensure that there is no repetition of such incidents in future” must be followed by a clear indication of what measures will be put in place – mandatory video and audio recording of all questioning/interrogations at police stations is one viable measure and how the ministry plans to execute this. Guyanese should accept nothing less.