Appalled at the ghastly acts committed by the police

May 17, 2014 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
It is very difficult to fathom how Dameon Belgrave’s life was tragically ended on October 5, 2012, we believe by the police, and no one has been found guilty.  That is, for a large part, what it is to most of us. But it is also the furtherance of something far more sinister, and a milepost marking our society’s continued descent into chaos. We are shocked, appalled, horrified and outraged. Dameon Belgrave was cut down in the prime of his life.
We were upset when two rogue cops burnt the genitals of then fourteen-year-old Twyon Thomas at Leonora Police Station in October 2009. We grieved at the ghastly murder of Shaquille Grant at Agricola on September 11, 2011, by scoundrels in the police force. We recoiled in horror for Colwyn Harding who was brutally beaten and sodomized by the police at the Timehri Station. And today we are shocked when a villain in the police force shoots 15-year-old Alex Griffith in his mouth.
For all the promises initially being made by the Minister of Home Affairs and the top brass in the force to bring the rogue cops of such heinous crimes to justice, one wonders about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
More than that, we are equally shocked and outraged to know that in Guyana the police have mastered the skills of how to brutalize and kill innocent Guyanese in cold-blooded manner and then get others to cover-up for their crimes. Even in cases when a few are charged, they are set free because for some reason very weak cases are always presented.
The people know that the police will kill more innocent Guyanese. This is not the end. Far from it. The police force has become a killing machine and yet, neither the Minister of Home Affairs nor the uncaring PPP regime have said or done anything. And for the police to say that they have been made a scapegoat clearly shows that they are dishonest. The police ought to know that their job is to serve and protect and not to brutalize, sodomize and murder innocent civilians.
Public inaction and silence which are glaringly evident in police brutality and murders is driven by a few crippling factors. The first is fear. The culture of police brutality, shootings and murders of innocent citizens has been tacitly accepted, so it continues unchecked. This blunts the impact of the atrocities, and makes the masses believe that they are safe so nobody will kill them.
Second, the privileged classes will express shock and dismay at the atrocities committed by the police, but when it comes to the exercise of political influence to arrest the problem such token expressions fade away very easily and quickly. Third, the look-the-other-way syndrome by the PPP regime has allowed the police to perfect their killing dexterities in relative obscurity thus making the masses vulnerable.
The regime does not have the courage and credibility to attack and expose this problem head-on. There has been a profound miscalculation about the size and nature of police violence and misconduct. The ineffectual Minister of Home Affairs and the top brass in the police force have buried our heads in the sand and treated the lawless behaviour by some rogue cops as a criminal fringe in the force, never willing to recognize, far less acknowledge, that these rogue cops have moved away from the principles of the force to become a force of their own.
Where do we go from here? Indeed, if we are to get closer to solving police brutality and murders, the Minister of Home Affairs should be replaced as quickly as possible. He is quite obviously out of his league in the position he holds, and oblivious of the depths of the crimes committed by rogue cops. How could the Minister be expected to take the nation forward when every single crime leaves him clueless?
Sadly, the murders of Dameon Belgrave and Shaquille Grant, the sodomizing of Colwyn Harding and the shooting in the mouth of Alex Griffith, to name a few, will be just miscarriages of justice, and life will go on as normal. Unfortunately, this is where we are today in Guyana.
It has now become sadly obvious that the Mickey Mouse police force is incapable of solving any crime, even if the evidence is staring them in the face. The charade has now run its full course. It is now time to send for the real police from one of the first world countries.
What we are seeing is the complete failure of the PPP regime’s crime plan, if there was ever such a plan. Again, like the PPP, everything is public relations, everything is about talking, making grandiose statements and what they are doing or going to do. The reality does not matter. What is the PPP’s crime plan? Have they articulated a comprehensive crime plan? It is all about promises and trying to bamboozle people.
Guyana is a hopeless, failed State. For certain the leaders are hopeless.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish Singh

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