Police have come under heavy criticism for the way they handled Tuesday’s Middle Street shootout, which claimed five lives including that of the gunman, and according to retired Police Commissioner Winston Felix what was lacking was proper leadership.
Dozens of ranks engaged miner Deryck Kanhai in a shoot-out shortly after he had killed 71-year-old Hugh Rowland and Vanessa Williams and wounded Paul Raman. Despite their numbers, the man managed to keep the ranks at bay for nearly three hours. Two policemen, Constables Sherwin Pantlitz and Michael Forde were also shot dead during the confrontation, which ended with Kanhai’s death. It is still unclear whether he was subdued by lawmen or killed himself.
Based on the information from persons in the area, ranks acted rashly and seemed not to have a proper plan of action in place. There was nothing in place to get injured persons to the hospital and although surrounding streets were blocked off to vehicular traffic, police were unable to prevent civilians from walking near the scene of the shoot-out.
In a brief comment on the police’s response, Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell told Stabroek News that the first line of action in such a scenario is to calm the suspect down with the aim of arresting him. He said that ranks would try to talk to the suspect to get him out of the temper that he was in.
He said that a lot of ranks responded to the scene. Stabroek News counted around 80 but Brumell said that the number was under 50.
He noted that it was clear that the ranks “went out there with all their hearts” despite the fact that two of their colleagues had been shot and killed. He said that he was saddened that two ranks were among the fatalities and stressed that they both died in the line of duty in their efforts to ensure that citizens are safe.
He said that police will now be assessing the shooting.
Leadership
But Felix told Stabroek News during an interview yesterday that with such cases police are supposed to cordon off the area and set up an incident post, which is like an advisory post for those who are not on the ground.
He said that the police needed to assess the situation and deploy the ranks accordingly, while all businesses in the area should have been closed down and television notifications sent out advising that certain streets in the area were closed because of a shooting.
A woman who said she witnessed when Constable Pantlitz was fatally shot told Stabroek News that he “came to the scene like the terminator and moved at the side of the man house like he’s immortal, and sadly, that was the end of him.”
Many ranks were not in possession of protective gear – helmets and bulletproof vests – and on numerous occasions ranks were seen sharing their protective vests, or trading their low-powered weapons for higher power rifles.
Felix admitted that he had not seen any photographs or videos of what was happening at the scene. However, when told that many of the ranks were not wearing bulletproof vests or helmets, Felix said that one would expect that in a situation where there is live firing, ranks would have been deployed with adequate protective gear. He said that Brumell needed to provide answers as to why some of the ranks did not have adequate protection.
When Forde was rushed to the Georgetown Hospital, he was wearing no helmet and no bulletproof vest. He had been shot in the head.
“A SWAT unit for that (the shooting) is useless; it is an overkill. The Tactical Services Unit over the years has successfully dealt with those matters under some leadership,” Felix said, while adding that it is a “waste of taxpayers’ money to go and buy a big sledgehammer in the form of SWAT to kill an ant like a one man shooter in a house.”
Felix noted that had the TSU been properly managed, properly trained and properly led, there would have been “sufficient shooters to deal with that man. …It was one man in a house, he ain’t had nobody at that stage.”
He said too that with proper training and equipment, the TSU would have been able to insert some sort of device to enable them to see what was happening in the building. “They did not deploy the right people. The TSU couldn’t have stopped that from happening. What they had to have is the sort of leadership that would have initiated the correct procedures,” he added.
The police’s inability to deal with the crowd that gathered was another area of concern. According to Felix, those persons were just making the ranks’ work more difficult by being there.
“Guyanese don’t listen to the police. They don’t heed advice. They should not have been so close to a live firing area. Sense should tell them that. You would get a difficult time to move a crowd in the most dangerous situation. They want to be there in the midst of dangerous situations and they make the job of the police much more difficult,” he said, while adding that it is unfortunate that people choose to run towards gunshots instead of away from them.
Unnecessary
A source opined that this case should be a wakeup call for the police force since ranks would not have been killed if Standard Operating Procedures were being followed.
The source, who has a wealth of knowledge about the work of the police, told Stabroek News, “It is unnecessary to get ranks killed in a situation like that. This is not a bandit. This is some man who tripped out….”
The source noted that there was no need for all the confusion that occurred. He said that ranks needed to exercise patience and use all means necessary to capture the man alive.
He said that when receiving the report, the first thing that needed to be done was to cordon off the area and establish communication with the man. “They needed to let him understand… play with his mind. Bring relatives, his mother, his pastor to convince him to give himself up,” the source said, while adding that police have sent ranks overseas to be trained in negotiation techniques and these persons could have been utilised on Tuesday. The negotiators, he said, would have tried to ascertain what the man’s problems were and what he needed. He said that in his opinion police did not have to hurry, they had time even if they were faced with a situation where they had to rotate ranks.
The source said that another option for the police could have been waiting until nightfall when they were protected by the cover of darkness. He said that the responding ranks could have also positioned their “sharpshooters” to take the man out and the army could have also assisted in this regard.
“There was no need for any daytime shoot-out. The Standing Operating Procedures (SOP) were not there,” he said adding that the SOP states that the loss of life on either side must be avoided at all cost.
“You go to arrest. You do not endanger a man’s life… don’t endanger lives of ranks. Give the man a chance to surrender,” the source said, while stressing that it was clear in this case that the police did not adopt the right posture.
