Leroy Brumell – A policeman who almost never was

Mar 30, 2014 News

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By Dale Andrews 
“Started from the bottom, now we’re here!!!” The words from the hit song by American rapper Drake kept ringing in my head after I finished my interview with Commissioner of Police Leroy Brumell. I could not help thinking that come tomorrow a career that started out almost by default, was coming to a glorious end after 36 years.
As we sat down in his office last Thursday morning I got the distinct impression that here is a man who had achieved all that he had set out to do as a policeman.

I can recall previous visits to that office when I stared in awe at the hundreds of yellow cardboard files and other paper in almost every corner of the room. On those occasions I thought to myself that I really did not envy the Commissioner of Police, although over the years I found time to criticize all those who held that office from Laurie Lewis to Leroy Brumell.
On Thursday, the Commissioner’s office was devoid of most of those files; it was as if Brumell had completed the Herculean task of solving all the outstanding matters he had inherited from his predecessors as well as the countless issues that had come up while he was manning that chair which many would not hesitate to describe as a poisoned chalice.
I was convinced that Leroy Brumell had fulfilled his destiny. I was treated to an emotional description of the outstanding career of one of the most dedicated lawmen the Guyana Police Force has seen.
Brumell started off by telling me how he joined the Force. He told me that he wanted to be a teacher but ended up in the Guyana Police Force because of a commitment his father had given to a friend.
“My father had a friend, Inspector Hussein and through Hussein, they were trying to get my smaller brother into the Force, but when they took him to the training school he was too young.
“My father, not wanting to disappoint Mr Hussein came to his son, me, who wanted to become a teacher and told him, ‘Just go and spend six months; I ain’t want this man feel bad’,” Brumell told me.
He consented because according to him, his father was always a tower of strength behind him, and on November 9, 1977 at the age of 18 years and eight months old, he enlisted as 10105 Brumell in the Guyana Police Force for a net monthly salary of $203.98.
Fighting to hold back tears, the Top Cop said, “I really feel it sometimes when my father is not here…He died before I took up my first command; he always wanted me to become a Commander. If he were alive he would have been the proudest man.”
There and then I recalled his acceptance speech following his confirmation as Guyana’s Top Cop, when he stated that from the beginning, he had always set his sights on becoming the Commissioner of Police, especially since his early days of training brought him into contact with the then Commissioner of Police Lloyd Barker.
“When I was a trainee I used to go across at his home on weekends; I used to do what you called some fatigues, and it was a pleasure looking at the Commissioner in that house. So when I go in that house later, I said to myself that so many years ago I used to visit here.”
Of course those were the days when the average policeman was generally close to six feet tall. Brumell with his height (or lack of height) would have had his challenges.  To dream such dreams of becoming the Commissioner was a bit farfetched, he jokingly admitted.
“Men used to watch you and want to beat you up.”
He trained with men such as former Superintendent 10092 Phillip Armstrong; Superintendent 10111 Emptage who himself will also be leaving the Force this week.

After completing his training, the young Leroy Brumell was posted to the Police Finance Office, which was quite a surprise to him since by his own admission, he was not too keen on Mathematics and figures.
But he remained there because his superiors saw his dedication to his job. He got his first promotion in 1981 to the rank of Corporal.
He acted as a Sergeant four years later and then successfully applied to become a Police Cadet Officer.
During his Cadet training he almost switched careers to the army to which he was being lured, but fate was on his side to reach the pinnacle of the Police Force.
“I told myself that I did not want to be an ungrateful person; I was recommended (for cadetship) by my Finance Officer, Frank Armstrong called ‘Power’,… and the administration of the police force was fully behind me, so I would have been ungrateful if I had gone over,” he said.
But although Brumell was moving up rapidly in the organization, it was not all smooth sailing for him.
He rose to the level of superintendent at the finance office, having successfully completed several courses in accounts locally.
His stint at the University of Guyana was unceremoniously cut short when he was transferred from the department and subsequently sent by the force to Canada on a Senior Police Administration course in 2000.
By the time he returned to Guyana, he had lost a lot of ground with his university studies. It was at this point that he paid tribute to his wife.
“I can tell you that my wife and children have made up for it…All my children, my wife made sure that all of them completed university. She did her Master’s and I’m proud of them,” he said.
Mrs. Brumell, he said, was always there to support him. He told me that whenever he had a paper to do or a speech to make, she was there.
He referred to the certain words which he had difficulty pronouncing correctly and Mrs. Brumell was there to correct him.
He almost made the mistake of mispronouncing one of the words during his farewell parade speech last Friday. He was careful to remember that his wife was sitting in the audience and he quickly adjusted.
It was his wife who encouraged him to get his own home. We laughed when he told me that he was living in the bottom flat of his mother’s Herstelling house and that he had acquired three cars.
“My wife told me, ‘wait man, like me and dem children gon live in cars?’”
Judging from what he told me next, I sensed that the support he was given by the Force’s administration earlier in his career was diminishing. A new Commissioner was now running the Force and his name was Laurie Leyland Lewis.
The transfers were coming fast and thick; Brumell found himself being deputy to a number of Commanders all over Guyana.
“I think I work as deputy more than any in this Force. I’ve worked under so many commanders that I used to call myself a second hand man because I was not getting to command,” he said.
His troubles continued and he remained stagnant in one rank for a while. His eagerness and dedication caused him to step on the toes of persons who were his superiors.
In the late 1980s, he was stationed at the police narcotics section as the raids officer and the young vibrant Brumell was making some significant busts; he was relentless.
“At that time we hadn’t too many vehicles; I had to use my own vehicle to do raids.”
But his actions as a true police officer were hurting some people.
I realised since then that there was a problem with confidentiality within the Guyana Police Force, that there were some people who were compromised by drug dealers.
He once stumbled upon a person whom he suspected to be a drug dealer and the persons could have told him that he would have been transferred. Sure as day, a week later, Brumell was removed from the Criminal Investigations Department and transferred to Berbice.
“I think some of the cases that I made really hurt some people within the system and that is why I spent several years as a deputy superintendent, you know.”
At one time he was becoming so frustrated that he wanted to resign. But his wife kept him in check.
“When they reverted me to uniform and transferred me to Berbice, I was down because I wanted to know what wrong I did. My wife came to me one day and saw me writing something and she pulled away the paper thinking that I was writing my resignation. She told me, ‘Let me tell you something, we got these three children to mind, plus you got me to mind; they ain’t give you the work and they can’t take it away from you, go on your transfer’,” Brumell said.
He recalled arresting a diplomat with suspected drugs and the fallout was so devastating that he almost quit the Force.
“We arrest the man…a Jamaican. I understand that his father and Laurie Lewis, who wanted to “‘kill” me, were friends…I was marched before officers and this man berated me. He sent me home. One week I was at home. The man said, ‘Go home, I fed up with you, all I hearing is Brumell, Brumell, I fed up’,” the outgoing Police Commissioner recalled.
Eventually he got his break thanks to an article in the Mirror newspaper, which was written by the late President Janet Jagan, praising the young officer for his work in Essequibo during the 1997 General Elections.
He became a Superintendent in 1998; a Senior Superintendent in 2001 and four years later an Assistant Commissioner.
Here is where another default catapulted Brumell to the highest office in the Guyana Police Force.
Brumell is rightfully convinced that had Henry Greene not been accused of sexual assault, he, Brumell, would not have been sitting in the chair today.
Henry Greene’s extended five-year contract would have ended after Brumell would have retired.
So like the beginning of his career, special circumstances decided Brumell’s fate.

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