Dear Editor,
Recently I went to the Aurora Police Station to make a report of simple larceny allegedly committed by a worker of mine. During the time I was making the report to a young female constable, I realized that myself and the constable were alone in the police station and the compound also.
So I asked the constable where the other ranks stationed here were, and where the subordinate officer in charge was. Her answer was that the senior officer and some of them had left for the Supenaam Creek. Now to go into the creek can involve a distance of about five to more than twenty miles and can take hours, depending on the kind of engine which powers your boat. So I asked if they had communications equipment with them, and her answer was no. I was in no hurry so I remained there chatting with her for the next forty minutes or so, hoping they would return. Being an ex-policeman I found it very strange and unusual to have only one rank at any police station, more so a young female constable.
I was born and grew up about eighty metres away from the Aurora Police Station, and as a young man I had always wanted to be a member of the Police Force. After having served with pride for a number of years, permission was sought and obtained for me to leave.
But I can remember the days when at that said station only a wall used to separate the barracks room where the constable lived and the living quarters where the subordinate officer in charge and his family lived. There were also two houses for the other ranks and their families to live in the said compound, and other stations across the country had the same arrangement. An unmarried male constable had to live in the barracks room, and permission had to be given for them to leave the station district which was granted at most two times a week. The same thing applied to the senior officer in change; the commander had to give permission. Nobody lives in the barraks room or the station compound at Aurora Station now; everyone leaves as soon as their tour of duty has ended.
With all the neighbourhood police and the community police, one would expect that the station would be properly managed. I do not know what is the required strength of the Aurora Police Station or what is the actual strength, but what we all know is that no one rank only should ever be at any po1ice station.
Yours faithfully,
Archie W Cordis
