Latest update April 26th, 2026 12:45 AM
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The Crime Chief is over-reacting
Dear Editor,
My approach and response would have been different. “Crime Chief not amused by criticism of confessions obtained by police” (KN April 28) refers.
I think the Crime Chief is being overly sensitive, and overreacted. I would have seized the opportunity to give reassurance that the requisite care and standards attach at all times. That would have been the limit of a very focused response.
Still, to check on myself, I went back and examined what I wrote. I could not identify criticism, pointed, or implied, or otherwise. The review exercise, however, did reiterate what I started out to do: to share a cautionary statement, and to urge that checks and balances ensure that things are done right, if only to inculcate increasing confidence in the public.
Now it is certainly encouraging to read, compliments of the Crime Chief that the final arbiter, the courts, have upheld confessions coming before them. On the other hand, I must disagree with the quoted comment from Mr. Blanhum that, “It is very appalling that persons are criticizing us for not solving crimes, and others are questioning the way we are solving them.”
I repeat: I disagree with Mr. Blanhum with his objection to “others are questioning the way we are solving them.” My position is that reasonable, commonsense questions and concerns (not criticisms per se) must be raised and raised publicly to servant-leaders as to the how and “the way.” The “how” must be probed and interrogated. Think of this: If none were tendered over the years, then NICIL, Amaila Falls, and Flood Control (Drainage and Irrigation) would all still stand untouched as gospels of bureaucratic and corporate truth. I remind everyone that CLICO remains an unresolved and unsatisfying mystery. It is not a thriller to either victims or taxpayers.
I assert that these kinds of matters commence with a thought, mushroom into interest, and cohere into a question. Sometimes the question is pointed. From my standpoint (as written before) the Crime Chief has been energetic and delivered results. He has made a difference. I can only exhort him and his team to continue the good work, and according to the book. The Crime Chief himself has so attested in the KN article referenced.
In closing, I remind all of us about the near irreversibility of one innocent man railroaded into the one-way, lifetime purgatory of incarceration oblivion. None would wish that on the conscience, including watchful citizens. Of course, it goes without saying that the derivative and beneficiaries of such innocence are the really guilty in society, who are free to maim and shock even more.
GHK Lall
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