Every citizen is a police officer!

Dec 07, 2008 News

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By Michael Benjamin

We the innocent, led by the unknown, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much with so little that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
I chuckled to myself as I read this on the wall of the Ruimveldt Police Station.

Two police officers were busy taking reports while keeping a sharp eye on a few detainees sitting on the bench. Their job appears mundane but one needs to take a closer look at the profession to realize the challenges and headaches associated with the job.

One of the most dangerous jobs in the world has to be that of a police officer. Even those that sit behind a desk are exposed to dangers.

I remember Inspector Griffith who was gunned down by a lunatic who is still awaiting his day in court. I also remember those police officers in Bartica that paid the ultimate price after that interior community was infiltrated by bandits.

Then there are those officers that are out on the streets. With the prevalence of drug use and its concomitant results, the path of police officers is fraught with danger.

What makes this worse is that police officers receive ridiculous salaries in comparison to professions that are nowhere near as dangerous and certainly nowhere near as important. This makes being a police officer not only dangerous, but also thankless.

Policing is something that you really have to want to do with all your heart. It is an extremely dangerous vocation. The drug lords who proliferate the local landscape would go to any length to corrupt police officers. They are more than willing to flash the ‘towels’ so that law enforcement officers look the other way while they engage in their nefarious activities. Police work entails all round adaptability. Officers deal with hardened criminals, domestic violence, prostitution, corruption, homicides and high-speed chases. Many lose their lives while some receive life-threatening injuries while on the job.

Yet they plough on because they know that without them, society would decline into a state of anarchy.  Twenty-five years ago, I could have been a police officer, but instead, I opted for a military career in the Guyana National Service (GNS). I had enrolled as a recruit in the inaugural Joint Services Recruit Orientation Course (JSROC) conducted at Base Command Papaya. At the end of the six-month programme, some of my ‘squaddies’ were placed in the institutions of their choice.

Major Jervis of the Guyana Defence Force was a mere recruit back then. There was also Inspector Goodman of the Tactical Service Unit whose authoritative disposition made him a suitable candidate for the position he later attained.

On a daily basis I would observe many of my ‘squaddies’ who chose to make policing a profession and I wonder to myself what life would have been like if I had pursued that dream.

You see, I wanted action, a challenging vocation with ever-present danger. More importantly, I wanted to serve my country in a significant way.

While the Guyana Police Force (GPF) would have met the latter criterion, it fell woefully short of the former. Had I envisaged the change of the status quo, I would have pursued the dream and sought employment in the Guyana Police Force.

Who knows? By now I would have been in line to succeed Mr. Henry Greene.
Yes, comparing those days when policing was a mundane vocation to now when police officers are no longer safe, even behind their bullet proof vests, and the job is fraught with danger, I would have unhesitatingly chosen to be attired in blue and black.

Oh, for the thrill of pursuing Linden ‘Blackie’ London across the 83,000 square miles of unchartered territory, very oblivious to the fact that he was equipped with several AK-47 assault rifles while my colleagues and me carry Tech 9 straps!

Oh, for the joys of neglecting family and friends opting instead to remain cooped up in the barrack room awaiting the next dangerous assignment or spending sleepless nights staking out criminal joints, awaiting the next move of these hardened bandits.

It curdles the blood to imagine myself lying with my belly on the ground knowing that at any moment that very belly could be facing skywards, another brave law enforcement officer sacrificing his life for peace and stability in the society.

Oh, to bask in the throes of ecstasy, after employing superb intelligence techniques and ridding society of another ‘Blackie’ or ‘Fine Man.’  Just the very thought gives me nationalistic goose bumps.

However, wait! The job is only half finished. I now wait, anxiously for the cussing out from John Public because they believe that police officers are vagabonds and rogues who should be contented with their measly pay and substandard conditions under which they work.

I hear the naysayer and read the letter columns demanding that the police ‘justify the huge sums ploughed into their organization by their Commander-in-Chief.’

I could have been smack in the middle of the action but no, I had to choose the most monotonous of jobs as a member of the GNS. When I told a friend of my regrets he joked that I would have been relegated to a monotonous job as a traffic cop. I doubt it!

Even if I had landed that job, I could have ended up like Constable Quincy James, gunned down while on his traffic beat at Regent and King Streets a few years ago.

Had I been given a desk job, chances are that I could have been slaughtered like Inspector Richard Griffith whose only crime was being at the right place at the wrong time.

Talk about clear and present dangers, the Police Force was the place for me!
Poor me! I had one single choice and opted for the GNS. Now I get green with envy when I see my old schoolmate Assistant Superintendent Clifton Hicken having fun, waist deep in a canal trying to retrieve an illegal firearm.

I become disgusted with myself whenever I see my good friend Corporal Gregory Brushe who became blind after he was shot during the height of the crime spree in 2004. I say to myself, “Boy that might have been me, in service to my country!”

Some time ago I witnessed a traffic cop racing behind a man who sprinted into the Le Repentir Cemetery and jumped into the trench as he tried to escape.

The traffic cop jumped off his motorcycle and into the trench behind the fugitive. Alas, it was too late! The man had disappeared into Princes Street. Hardly anyone witnessed this act but if that officer had accepted a bribe the world would have known.

When I read the Saturday November 8 edition of Kaieteur News, I felt a feeling of satisfaction. The headlines read, ‘Major criminal gang smashed.’ Had I chosen to join the Force back in 1983, I probably would have been among the ‘smashers.’

But there is hope. I can still be a police officer. I can still keep a sharp eye out for those that break the laws with impunity and report them.

I can report that drug block that is destroying our youths. I could nail the mobster who lay wait for our womenfolk and perform dastardly deeds that strip them of their dignity. As a matter of fact, every law-abiding citizen can be a police officer.

That way our beloved country can be freed of the scourge that is wrecking havoc on our beloved land.

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