Daft punks

Apr 11, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

There should be no place in the Guyana Police Force for punks. These ranks will bring disgrace, scandal and ruination to the Force. They should be purged from the Force but only after being afforded due process.
A Member of Parliament recently related his unsettling experience at the hands of the Police Force who have now found a new method of harassing and shaking down members of the public. That method involves claiming that the drivers are not steady and therefore should be subject to Breathalyzer tests.
According to the MP, while on his way to the city he was stopped by the police. A young policeman came out of the police vehicle and told the MP’s driver, “You drivin’ all over the road like you drunk.”
The MP said that he replied, “He was not driving like he is drunk and that is an old line.”
The police obviously had to establish a basis for stopping the vehicle. That reason was that the driver was unsteady at the wheel, implying that he was driving under the influence.
According to the MP, the young policeman told him to “to shut the f—up” to which he responded, “I am a Member of Parliament and this man is my driver and he will never drink when he is driving”.
The young policeman then said, “’PPP ain’t running things now…”
The MP related that after leaving the station, another police rank blurted out, “He ain’t no f–ing Member of Parliament, he look like a sku—t.”
Those statements, if true, are the product of ignorance. The Force does not need ignorant ranks.
If any of these allegations turn out to be correct, then there can be no place for the ranks who made those offending statements. They should be subject to disciplinary proceedings.
The ranks who made such statements cannot be trusted to be fair and impartial. They have exhibited bias and an inability to be professional or objective. They therefore have no place in a Police Force.
The experience of that Member of Parliament attests to the unprofessional conduct of some members of the Force whom he described as being punks. Immediately, upon reading that missive from the parliamentarian, the police hierarchy should have dispatched a senior officer to take a statement from the MP so as to begin disciplinary proceedings against the rank or ranks who made unprofessional statements in the course of their engagement with the MP.
The hierarchy should not wait on the MP to come forward and make a statement. It should dispatch a rank to obtain a statement from the MP so as to begin to take disciplinary action against the rank.
The Minister of Home Affairs should request a report into the outcome of any investigation into this matter. It should be made clear that the policy of the government is to have a police force, which is free of persons who exhibit such attitude on the job. The MP by virtue of the position he holds as a legislator, has a duty to cooperate in rooting out this sort of unprofessional conduct from ranks. The MP is also part of the AFC, which holds the portfolio for national security. The MP therefore has a responsibility to contribute to the improvement of the professionalism of the Force.
The police hierarchy should take seriously the allegation that one of its ranks, however junior, should be stereotyping East Indians as being part of the PPPC. If this is the thinking of any rank, that person does not belong in any law enforcement agency. The hierarchy also should be concerned by the allegation that upon leaving a police station, the MP was subject to abuse by another rank. If true, then this amounts to unprofessional conduct, which should be subject to disciplinary proceedings.
These things should not be tolerated. If it is true what the MP said then those ranks should be subject to disciplinary proceedings and banished from the Guyana Police Force.
It is discomforting that fifty years after Independence, the British High Commissioner would have had to remind the Police that corrupt ranks should be jailed. It just shows the perception which the diplomatic community has of the Guyana Police Force.
That perception is not going to improve if punks remain part of the Force.

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Daft punks

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