We expect much better from the police

Mar 22, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column

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The headline screamed, “Police arrest two for Crum-Ewing’s murder.” In days this would have been a sensational story because the society would have recognized that the arrest came after painstaking investigation. Way back then, the police never sought to deprive people of their liberty in a willy-nilly fashion.
In the newsroom, a reporter said that this was the way of the police to pacify the nation, to make people believe that they are working hard. The reporter then predicted that the two people in custody would be released. So said, so done. The police released them because they had nothing to keep holding the two.
A few days later, two more were arrested and this time a silver-grey vehicle was impounded. Having been a profound soothsayer, the reporter made the same pronouncement. I have to await the outcome. What I do know is that the police are trying, but it is counterproductive to announce arrests when there is nothing to support the arrests.
As I said last week, there are people who know what happened, but they are not talking out of fear for their lives. We know that the police can be confidential but there were times when the people lost confidence in the force because there were ranks who blabbed out of control.
I follow the international news out of habit and a curiosity to know what is happening in other parts of the world, and I always see the foreign police arresting someone for a crime that seemed to have been executed when no one was looking. This is done because the police walk the streets and canvas people house to house.
There was the shooting of an Iraqi who happened to be outside his house enjoying his first snow. He had escaped his country to be safe in the United States. Within a few days the police were able to apprehend the shooter, a young man, who had no reason to shoot the Iraqi.
Indeed, the training of the foreign police is better than ours but since, as they say, the world of technology exposes everyone to what the other does, then there must be someone in the local police force who can make our law enforcers copy what the others do successfully. And this does not mean that they do not make mistakes.
Just the other day I read about a man who spent 39 years in jail and narrowly missed the gallows for a crime he never committed. That arrest came some 40 years ago, but the use of technology and a review of the evidence led to the man’s freedom. So mistakes are made.
The police shot and killed some unarmed young men these past few months. Again they made mistakes. In our case, gone are the days when people were shot out of hand. Full credit to former Police Commissioner Winston Felix for curbing that trend, but it is a pity that he could not emphasise proper detective work.
There is the issue of the roadblocks. These go up all over the country at nights, sometimes for no other reason than to net some cash for the ranks. These roadblocks have become so ubiquitous that criminals dress as policemen and mount them to rob people.
This was the case the other day at Mahaicony and caused people to wonder what would happen to them if they refuse to stop at a roadblock they consider suspicious. Innocent people could be killed. One expects the Police Commissioner and his commanders to act. The ranks are saying that it is impossible for them to determine genuine police roadblocks from fake ones. This speaks to the level of communication within the force.
Another limiting factor is the politicization of the police. It is common knowledge that someone who enjoys political support can avoid arrest. All too often people would come to me to complain that someone with political connections appears to be getting away with a crime or with some misdemeanor.
This is responsible for the continued allegation of corruption and fraud. I know of cases that merited investigation but none was done because the parties involved were linked to a political party. There were reports of a regional official using state funds allotted to the region to purchase a piece of heavy duty machinery.
Of course the officer went outside the required specification and so rendered the piece of equipment useless. This was because the money he must have collected on the side was too great to pass up. When the news was reported this regional official went to the courts to sue for libel.
As fate would have it I had the documentation so through his lawyer he walked away from the case. The authorities transferred him to the party office. But he had been transferred from another region because of the same irregularity. He was never prosecuted. Things like this cause the wider society to proclaim that the government embraces corrupt practices.
And so it is that local newspapers pounce of what happens to people involved in corruption in other parts of the world. The former president of Sri Lanka was found to have salted away US$2 billion in a bank in Dubai. I cannot seem to contemplate such a sum. For one it is as large as the debt this country owes its lenders.
Second, it is larger than the national budget and certainly larger than Guyana’s foreign reserves. The people who monitored the Sri Lanka economy had to see this money being siphoned off but then again, they were relatives of the president and they too were doing the same.
The big question is how much money does an individual need? Bill Gates knows how much he needs and he is giving the rest away.
Nigeria, another country to accommodate corrupt governments, recently got a foreign country to return some US$300 million that the leader had salted away. It would be interesting if our government could hire investigators to find some of the money that was definitely salted away in foreign banks, or even in local banks. The government may also wish to take a look at some of the unused bank accounts fashioned from money allocated to the various Ministries. Who knows what would be found?
It was heartening to hear that the newly formed SOCU—Special Organised Crime Unit—headed by the Police Commissioner has already seized tons of money believed to be from suspicious transactions. But what happens after that? Perhaps the people could move to the courts to challenge the seizure.
It would be interesting to know if high level officials were caught up in this.

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