Dear Editor,
I write to commend the Guyana Police Force (GPF) on its performance in the recent fatal and live apprehension of the suspects in the GuySuCo payroll robbery.
From all available information in the public space, the GPF responded to a well-planned and coordinated crime with the kind of expediency and organisation that are both necessary and productive in these times.
The fact that such organisation made it possible for them to capture most of the suspects alive reinvigorates confidence in law enforcement, and the men and women who have been serving that institution for almost two centuries.
There was a time in our history when law enforcement officers were regarded as heroes by the youths in Guyana. I can recall, as a kid, running behind mounted troopers and admiring their regal stature in uniform as they galloped through the streets of Georgetown, engaged either in crowd control, or just proceeding on routine patrols through the city.
Or standing by the side of the road, on my way to school in the early mornings, and admiring the precision with which squads of police men and women proceeded through the street on a “route march”, the click of their heels into the asphalted roadway reverberating in perfect synchrony with the rattle-tattle of the marching drum beat.
And who can forget the bravery of Constable Fordyce, who tackled a cutlass-wielding Edward Lashley and apprehended him after a violent struggle, after he, Lashley, had brutally murdered one of Constable Fordyce’s colleagues, Constable Hannibal.
There is little doubt in my mind that the Guyana Police Force has a core of officers in the mould of Fordyce, and many others like him who had gone before them.
It is my fervent hope that, as their approach to fighting crime continues to evolve and adapt with the changing times, they will not abandon, but carry forward into perpetuity, those things that once made them heroes in the eyes of the many little boys and girls in the nation of Guyana. Well done, squaddies! R.W.