The police – reaction versus proaction

Jan 19, 2014 Features / Columnists, My Column

---

 
Why the Guyana Police Force continues to stumble from one negative to another is testimony to the decline in the society. The policemen come from the very society that is crying out for protection, but the difference is that the ordinary policeman is just a person who opted for life in the force as a last resort, because they see opportunities to fleece the people.
It also allows some of them to let the monster that lurks in all of us come out. That is why the police are at the centre of a horrific allegation that involves sodomy. But the issue does not end there. This episode began on November 15, last year, when young Colwyn Harding was arrested. Not a word was heard about it until this month, nearly two months later.
I have always loved the public. It comprises people who have become apathetic, but they slip out of their lethargy from time to time and when they do they make their voices heard.  And so it was when they took to the streets and to the pages of the newspapers to voice their disgust with the police force.
After two months, the hierarchy of the police stepped in to appease the public and immediately some things happened. The police told the nation that the people identified in the act of sodomy denied the allegation. Who would not deny doing anything wrong?
So it should have been left to the hospital. The Health Minister suggested that the report of sodomy might have been exaggerated. However, why should the hospital be in doubt? Minister Bheri Ramsaran said that the infection of Harding’s intestines was the result of a hernia. He then claimed that Harding underwent two surgeries.
Yet he did not say if the doctors examined Harding for evidence of an anal assault. That should have been rudimentary. The doctors must have heard the voices of the members of the public, but there is no evidence that they checked out the young man’s allegations.
Some things bother me. For one, when the report was made to the police, precious little was done. At the same time, the police charged Harding with assault because he bit a policeman. Who would not attack his tormentor? I am glad that they did not shoot Harding, because the police are quick to resort to deadly force.
The prison authorities said that Harding never told them anything about the assault. As a man, few would admit to being anally assaulted and Harding was one of them. So he languished in jail for biting a policeman because he could not post bail.
Pretty soon that was changed to Harding being released on his own recognizance, but even this was ignored by the police. They claimed that they were not informed. When the police took Harding to court one of them was there and he had to be aware. Yet the information was apparently not passed on to the authorities.
It later took the court to enforce its decision and intensify the scandal. But before that happened, a group of prison officers overpowered the nurses who are entrusted to care Harding and they literally fought the injured man, because they say that he had a cellular phone. Four prison officers happened to be there at the time of the fight. Why were there four prison officers watching Harding?
They were not there on two occasions when prisoners escaped; they were not there when the last escapee shot and killed a policeman. But I suppose with Harding now being a public person, they needed to get in on the publicity, so they were present in their numbers.
I am forced to go back to the past when this country was ruled by the colonial power and when we the servants felt that the rulers were the best there was. The police arrested a man named Emmanuel Fairbairn also called Emmanuel Batson. They tortured him by putting him to sit on a chair without seat so that his testicles hung through the hole. They reportedly had a field day with those cojones.
Batson ended up in hospital and when the dust settled his torturers ended up in court. That didn’t take long and justice was swift. The archives of the Guyana Chronicle contain the detailed court proceedings. More than fifty years later and we are worse. The police force has retrogressed.
There is a report of some bandits invading the home of an Annandale resident. There was a shootout and one of the intruders was seriously injured. The nearest police station happened to be about a mile away. In fact there are two—one at Beterverwagting and another at Friendship. The police took ninety minutes to get to the scene of the crime. At least that was what was reported.
There are hardworking policemen and decent ones, but the rogues taint the force. People should not have to call on the police to take action. These are proactive people and I have seen them act. They have protected me and most of the society over the years. So why this blip?

---

---