How can a curfew state help a community?

Apr 25, 2014 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Good intentions are practiced and not preached, that the acting Commissioner’s approach to embracing the underprivileged South Georgetown area demonstrates the absence of a real understanding of the community’s needs, or an indifference to that fact. I can say that no sincere attempt to embrace this community with a resident group was made.
In most cases religious organizations with their self-righteous-self serving grip on reality have hardly ever been known to alone, without secular participation, effect serious social change.   Senior Sup. Clifton Hicken, now holding the reins on A Division, is from South Georgetown, went to school in West Ruimveldt , and he should know very well that a curfew state of police occupation is the last thing any of the areas of South Georgetown needs, as well as his abysmal performance at Linden raises the question on his capacity to function in a complex area like addressing the social needs of South Georgetown.
That there is crime, ganja and coke sellers, street hustlers, stick-up men is no secret. What the Commish (acting), and his architects at La Penitance and Albouys St. do not know is that Albouystown is  a gathering place for tough, street wise folk from all over South Georgetown, and they are not all into crime. That most of the actual residents of Albouystown are poor working class with a hard to dispute mind-set that this Government cares nothing about their existence, especially the overwhelming police patrols that frequent that area for the purpose of extorting from the many marijuana  hustles etc.; that most people in those areas are unable to provide the basic amenities for family life, plagued with the national crisis of serious unemployment, no social initiatives to arrest the youth hopelessness.
Poverty is the serpent in the tree and the illegality that seems to be the sanctioned way of “De big man dem” is the beckoning forbidden fruit. That seems the only way out of their mental and physical depressed environment.  Now the new Acting Commissioner has executed the most bizarre Police /community campaign ever encouraged, by a recent Religious addition to the community who has never lived in this or any adjoining South Georgetown area.
Sunday evening I received a call and could hear commotion in the background. It appears that three youths were stopped by an infantry Police patrol and pushed against a wall and searched. These young men, my eyes on the spot told me, were 13/14 year olds, harassed and nothing found. They were released amidst protests from residents.  There’s a police report made against an officer who entered the home of a resident known for his political outbursts against Police and State civil rights abuses. This officer accompanied the Police and he boasted that they didn’t have to have a warrant to invade the premises of any citizen.
Introduced and compelled into the mind-set of most poor citizens of this country is a legitimate distaste and distrust for the authorities. One ponders, what has happened to the wisdom that had brought into being ideas like the Sea Scouts back in the day.
Monday morning I went into Albouystown with some friends from my much younger years. It wasn’t very long before we came into contact with a Patrol of young Policemen about the age of my son. We’re human so we spoke. I posed this question to them “You’ve been through the Streets of this community, do you think that anyone here can afford 5.000 US$ to buy a kilo of Cocaine, why then is this community the object of a semi-Police cordon?” This question I’ve also asked myself, with no forthcoming answer. How many businessmen suspected of drug trafficking and their children are in receipt of fire arms licenses? How many cases of fatal shootings by such criminal favorites were allowed to be cheaply paid off can be counted by these poor citizens, whose lack of monetary means does not determine their intelligence.  I spoke to the Cooper St.  Christian facility and merely inquired what was their agenda in this collaboration with the Police and the mosque? The young pastor assured me that their ongoing programme lies in the areas of counseling and vocational training, to which he expanded on their approaches. Obviously they were duped by the Police, for the Police Agenda seems out of sync with theirs, and this pastor was not on the TV launching of this operation. I cautioned him not to sit in the counsel of the ungodly, nor on the seat of the scornful; in local terms “Deh pon yuh heights”. Patrols and crime fighting is commended but stigmatizing through occupation and harassment is anything but legal. I close by commending the efforts of the Cooper St facility and hope that some suggestions that we shared can attract more support.
Barrington Braithwaite

---

---