THOSE POLICE FIRINGS

Oct 08, 2016 Editorial

Long ago police officers were appreciated, respected and trusted by the people. The job was less stressful, but not anymore. Being a police officer today is very stressful and less appreciated by the public. One of the reasons is that criminals have become more sophisticated with high powered weapons.
Many police officers are corrupt and cannot be trusted. Others are disrespectful to the public. In the past the public had trusted the police and were not scared to report crimes or mention the names of the criminals. Today, many believe that some police officers are secretly protecting some of the known criminals.
Despite police statistics that the crime rate is down, the wider public is not convinced that crime has reduced because as reported in the media, someone is either murdered or robbed almost every day. Crime is driving fear in people and rendering them helpless.
Literally, crime is everywhere as the criminals continue to prey on innocent civilians across the country. No community is safe. The Minister of Public Security has called on the people to join with the police to declare war on crime. However, this does not mean that the average citizen should literally pick up arms and confront the criminals. It means that they should report any suspicious behaviour and criminals activities to the police.
The police and intelligence agencies are crying out for modern weapons and equipment in order to make a serious dent in crime. There is also a shortage of manpower and resources to tackle crime.
Yet, kudos must be given to the police for diligent policing especially for their swift arrest of criminals and in disbanding some criminal gangs. Praise must also be given to the Citizen Security Strengthening Programme to remodel eighteen police stations across the country, create domestic violence units and to upgrade the Forensic Laboratory in order to have a more effective force to fight crime.
The police must also be commended for moving against 30 rogue cops—firing 15 of them after passing them before the courts–for various acts of misconduct, theft, corrupt transactions, and armed robbery. They also wounded citizens. In addition to those dismissed, ten were reassigned for unprofessional conduct and two were charged with larceny of a cellular phone.
The acting Police Commissioner has made it clear that there will be zero tolerance for misconduct, theft or mistreatment of the public by the police who took an oath to serve and protect the people.
The Commissioner has sent a powerful message to all the rogue officers to either shape-up or be fired. This is probably the first time that 15 members of the force have been dismissed in one month. It has been known for a while that some Police Officers are corrupt but no action was ever taken against them by the last administration.
While wrong-doings by police officers or anyone else should not be condoned, it should be noted that those ranks who were dismissed are young men who had recently joined the force to improve their lives. What they did was absolutely wrong. Some may say that taking their livelihood away is too severe but there is always the adage of the one rotten apple in the barrel.
Some may also argue that they could become criminals in order to survive.
Indeed, they did not kill anyone or steal hundreds of millions of dollars and neither are they repeated offenders nor perfect individuals.
But then again, the longest journey begins with the first step. The life of a criminal always begins somewhere, often small.

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