Police brutality in Guyana is sickening

May 17, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The intentional use of verbal attacks and excessive force by an authority figure, which oftentimes ends with bloodshed, bruises, broken bones and sometimes even death, represents expressive forms of brutality. These acts carried out by members of the police force are forms of brutality that are experienced by some members of the Guyanese society, particularly the young black male.
The officers of the Guyana Police Force have been entrusted with powers more than the average citizen. They have the power to arrest, seize property, and even use deadly force in certain circumstances. Many of them from time to time have been accused of abusing those powers and when it is proven that they did, the officers are not fired or prosecuted. In most of these cases sadly, they are either transferred to another division in a different location or sometimes suspended as a means to pacify or appease the public outcry for the time being.
Undoubtedly, these minor punishments for such unjustifiable crimes are by no means a deterrent to prevent them from recurring.
There is sufficient evidence that police officers act and behave like they are above the law, and they abuse their powers as they wish, without fear of being reprimanded or disciplined.
Our society is at real risk and the safety of the citizens is in jeopardy, because the very people entrusted with the responsibility to protect them are the perpetrators.
The criminal acts carried out by some law enforcers are characterized as “police misconduct” – the beating of a young boy and his mother in the hinterland community with a branch while being taped; the shooting of three innocent protesters in Linden July 18, 2012; the burning of a young man’s genitals; the shooting of 15-year-old Alex Griffith in his mouth while playing Russian roulette with his life.
These cases of “misconduct” also include sexual abuse – the brutal baton rape of Colwyn Harding – and profiling – a Rasta man in public transportation is presumably a drug dealer or a mule; a car with four black men is more likely to be stopped and checked; the driver of an expensive vehicle is a considered target for a potential bribe, police corruption, false arrest and political repression.
These forms of police brutality are mainly directed towards the vulnerable groups in our society – the poor, the weak, and sadly, the black youth in a country of many races.
According to Amnesty International (2009) the police force has brutalized these vulnerable groups. It was observed that some of the punishments accorded to the suspects included shooting, beating, verbal and psychological abuse.
Most of these forms of brutality are always a blatant violation of the suspect’s constitutional rights, and should and must be stopped.
Despite the presumed new leadership of the force and varying departments and divisions, the prospects for change still remain dismal and uncertain.
Why should one have to write in order to see the commissioner of police, when he told the nation he has an open door policy? Were his utterances mere rhetoric and a political stunt?
With the constant elevation of crime in our society, the Guyana Police Force has a lot of work to do, not just in retraining and re-educating its members so they would be more knowledgeable of the laws and the constitutional rights of the people they are mandated to protect and serve, but also to change its tainted image.
The members of the force, especially the outpost/station police and traffic officers, have to be more respectful and chivalrous to citizens when exercising their duties if they are really serious about rebuilding the lost trust and confidence between police and citizens.
Jermaine Figueira

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