Is Police Commissioner Henry Greene suffering from a ‘credibility and integrity deficit’?

Dec 18, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Please allow me the privilege of sharing my views in your newspaper on Police Commissioner Henry Greene who now faces perhaps his most career crippling deficit of all: a credibility and integrity deficit.
My observation is reflected in the latest KN caption “Commissioner accused of rape… Felix calls for Greene to do the ‘Honourable thing’ and resign” (KNews, December 16th, 2011).  Worthy of note also, was the sub-caption, ‘Top Cop was implicated in similar allegations in 1978 & 1994’.  Although these chronicles of events were not proven either because of lack of evidence or the lack of will on the part of the victim(s) to produce these, this doesn’t mean that the act(s) did not occur.   This further observation is indeed evident in the Commissioner’s own words on the 1994 allegation, ‘the accuser did not provide any evidence’ and ‘the person declined to proceed with the matter’.
Commissioner, the public cannot be fooled and it would be the right and honourable thing to leave at a time, in fact now, whilst some credibility and integrity remains intact.  You have failed policing, you have failed to discharge your duty to protect and serve, you have failed as a leader, and you have failed miserably as a public servant.  The best Christmas present you can give to yourself would be to drum up the courage and conviction to resign and avail yourself to a new start, a new life, a new you, come January 2012.
You have one of the best curriculum resumes when compared with those of your previous colleagues in the history of the Police Force.  Despite the scholarly gap, I carefully observed one commonality ‘the Overseas Command Course at the Police Staff College, Bramshill, England 1981’.  Did you learn anything from your English counterparts Commissioner?  My reference here relates specifically to the notions of credibility and integrity.  Are you familiar with the name Sir Paul Stevenson?  Well, Sir Paul Stevenson graduated from Police Staff College, Bramshill in 1982.  He was a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner who did the right and honourable thing by resigning from his post for employing an advisor who was embroiled in a phone hacking scandal.  This is a person, a public servant with credibility and integrity; after all, he received a knighthood, and he chose to go to ensure these characteristics and qualities remained intact and not in deficit.  Despite the geographical, cultural and developmental gaps between the two countries and police forces you both benefited from a common, decent, moral, philosophical teaching at Bramshill and it may be prudent of you to use his resignation statement as a template.  (See ‘Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson: resignation statement’-Guardian, 17th July 2011).
After all, Commissioner, you have served the country in more ways than one.  History will be the only judge of how well you have served, which largely depends on the author.  A reward may also be in the making, in the new year, since our new Commander in Chief and President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana has the arduous task of redressing the ambassadorial imbalances between ethnicities.
Your list of alleged association with everything that is wrong, including associations with drugs, gangs, corruption, shooting innocent protesters, etc, in public life stretches the entire length and breadth of Guyana.  You have the complete list of selection criteria sorted, the full package some may say, to be posted to another continent – it has been done before.  Regrettably, to include rape/rapist, to the list and to remain in office without remorse and/or shame, despite these allegations, is tantamount to public abuse of power and the degradation of the qualities of trustworthiness, reliability, integrity, authority, standing, sincerity and believability.
This final straw of ‘rape’ is the one that, in my view and those of former Commissioner Felix, is the straw that broke the camel’s back.  The statement of the 34-year-old mother of two children  clearly demonstrates and includes all the traits of a serial rapist notably; physical presence, threats, weapon, and force.  Hazelwood, R. R & Warren, J (1990) showed, “How rapists maintain control over a victim is dependent upon two factors:  Their motivation for the sexual attack and/or the passivity of the victim.  Within this context, four control methods are frequently used in various combinations during a rape: 1) Mere physical presence; 2) verbal threats; 3) display of a weapon; and 4) the use of physical force”.
THE CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR OF THE SERIAL RAPIST, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (February, 1990).  The woman’s statement did not show ‘various combinations’ or ‘a sample’ of the control methods in action.  On the contrary, all four of the control methods (Hazelwood & Warren, 1990) were present and were used both individually and collectively to cause fear, harm, anxiety and distress.  Then you had the temerity to say, “Let God be the judge” (KN December 15, 2011).  God never sleeps, he was awake and a witness.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate and urge Commissioner Greene to listen to the calls of support from some of Guyana’s finest public servants, citizens at home, as well as those supporters in the Diaspora.  They are saying to you loud and clear ‘go and go now’ which is just the cover of the book.  In reality, as you turn the pages, these very persons are urging you to quit with the little credibility and integrity you have left.
Brendon Mounter (MA Ed)

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