National security needs a boost

Sep 21, 2013 Editorial

The call came by mid-morning Wednesday. A lawyer would be taking in a wanted man at nine the following morning. Did the wanted man contact the lawyer? It turned out not to be the case. The wanted man contacted his parents who in turn asked the lawyer to take their son into custody. They did not want to see any harm come to him regardless of what he might have done.
All too often wanted men would surrender because they know that if they remain on the run and are caught they are likely to be killed by the law enforcement authorities. We know of many who were as violent as they come when they were out on the street wreaking havoc among the law abiding citizens.
When the criminal gangs ruled Buxton no one along the East Coast corridor was safe. The gangs simply acted with immunity. Their names became household property and they were not afraid. The end came when the army entered the civilian defence mode and in a hurry some of the arrogant wanted men opted to surrender.
Some got a chance. One of them who by some miracle travelled across the city to reach West Demerara made a desperate plea to be saved. Some civilians responded to the plea and with the help of a lawyer, took him into the police even as armed ranks were out hunting him.
Then there was the teenager who made a name for himself by robbing and killing along the lower East Coast Demerara. When he surrendered, people saw a tearful man, scared out of his wits, and they were left to wonder at the ability of this youngster to create terror in the hearts of so many.
There was this call that should have seen another wanted man but the surrender was not to be. The young man called his parents and informed them that he would be taking his chances, that he would not be surrendering any longer.
There are also women on the run. One of them Yvonne Webster, has been on the wanted list for more than a decade. No one has seen hide or hair of her. Some feel that the police helped her hide. And there is another who is wanted for her husband’s murder. She too has had a wanted bulletin posted for her. As fate would have it she hid in full view of the public but no one thought to turn her in.
This gives rise to the issue of charging people for harbouring a wanted criminal. Rarely have the police chosen this option. Some contend that should the police charge someone with harbouring then the rest of the society would keep their mouths shut if they should see a wanted man out of fear that they too would be charged.
Suffice it to say that the police have been known to act responsibly in this area. They have been using every available piece of information. Their problem is that they have not been able to tap into the right people. And this brings us to the ability of the security services to execute wiretaps.
Just recently, the Minister of Home affairs spoke of using wiretaps more in the fight against crime. The wanted persons would invariably contact parents or very close relatives. Wiretaps, by now, would have helped the police to nab some of the people they want.
Last week Home Affairs Minister said that all the cameras installed to aid in security were working. It is amazing that none of them managed to get a glimpse of the most recent wanted man. But more seriously, the civilian population is the greatest aid the police could ever have.
There was a whistleblower programme but we are not sure that it is working. What we do know is that people are afraid to cooperate with the police. Instead, we hear of them co-operating with the criminals. This was the case in Buxton during the crime wave. This week it was the same in Campbellville.

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