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This is total harassment and an abuse of power

Oct 01, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
On the morning of Monday 28/09/2015, I was stopped by a recently transferred Traffic Constable, who was previously stationed at Bartica. According to him, “he spotted me” (his choice of words used) “driving without my seat belt on, as I passed him a few minutes before.”
At this point, he asked for my car’s documents of which all were intact and I issued them to him, and noted that I was wearing my seatbelt.
He then took the information from my license and I was then asked to report at the Lethem Police Station at 10:00 the same day.
As I arrived at the station, his supervisor tried to lecture me on the traffic laws of this country and even said that a police has the right to arrest anybody once they observe civilians committing a crime or offence at anytime; fair enough. The Traffic Constable arrived a few minutes later and shockingly put me on $10,000 bail and informed that I had to appear in court on December 3rd 2015 for the offence that he allegedly “spotted” me driving without my seat belt.
My argument is this Mr. Editor, the Traffic Constable failed to stop me when I first passed him. If he attempted to stop me, I had my eyes on the road and hence I couldn’t notice any signs of him stopping me. My question is this Mr. Editor, where in the world or traffic law books of Guyana, a Traffic Officer can charge you, simply because he “spotted” you driving without your belt and failed to stop you?
At no time during the said morning my belt was off. His actions are more questionable because as a Traffic Officer, he should have done the right thing and simply stop me, so then and there he would have had a clear case against me and right there and then summoned me to court for the offence. But no, this determined cop chose a convenient moment to stop me and tell me about an offence he spotted earlier.
This is total harassment Mr. Editor and an abuse of power. On the other hand, if this traffic cop is so great at spotting things, why then he didn’t spot any of the prisoners whom recently escaped from the Lethem lock ups? In addition this same traffic cop is also seen stopping vehicles and demanding documents and issuing tickets to drivers in an Indigenous community, namely St.Ignatius? That is unlawful and this alone exposes his incompetence and ignorance. If this traffic cop believes that the people in the Rupununi, and in particular Lethem, live under the ocean, then he could keep on dreaming, because we are not an ignorant people.
This same new traffic cop on the block would on a daily basis demand and even ensure that all the vehicles up here remove their tints, fair enough, but still give the green light to all the Brazilian Vehicles to pass our borders and roam the Lethem Community with their heavily tinted Vehicles.. Could my favorite Mp, the Honorable Minister of National Security, Kemraj Ramjattan give us an explanation there? We want to see a level playing field all over Guyana, we just voted out a decayed Regime, and thus, we want to see fairness prevail. I trust that the presiding Magistrate of Lethem is reading this letter so he/ she would have a vivid memory of this questionable charge come court day on December 3rd.
Romel Harrinandan

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