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Police forced to quickly dispose of unidentified bodies to cut cost
Deputy Director of the Force’s Corporate Communication Unit (CCU), Stan Gouveia.
The man who was killed in a tragic car accident is yet to be identified.
Kaieteur News – The Guyana Police Force (GPF) recently hinted that it is moving to dispose of unidentified bodies as quickly as possible just to cut cost.
Kaieteur News was able to obtain this bit of information after a post mortem examination was conducted on an unidentified accident victim last Wednesday. The victim, according to police, is a male in his late 60s who was reportedly struck down by a car around 20:20hrs on Monday August 9, along the Better Hope Public Road, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
The Force is also seeking the public’s help to identify the remains as soon possible. If no one comes forward within two weeks, it will be buried by the State in an unmarked grave following approval from the court.
The move by the Force to perform an autopsy on the man’s remains so quickly without it being identified caught Kaieteur News’ attention, as it is not a common practice by GPF. Normally, unidentified bodies would remain stored for long periods, sometimes years before an autopsy is done or they are disposed of.
A former divisional commander and a serving Assistant Commissioner of Police, explained that the reason why investigators would opt to not perform autopsies on unidentified bodies is because there would be no name available to file an official report for the records.
In other cases, especially those of suspected murders, investigators would prefer to not dispose of the corpses right away because should they do that, there would not be any further investigation into the matters.
In seeking answers regarding the force’s rush to dispose of the accident victim’s body as soon as possible, this media house made contact with the GPF’s Corporate Communications Unit (CCU).
In response, the Deputy Director of CCU, Stan Gouveia pointed out that to store a body, it costs money. He explained that the longer the body remains stored, the cost keeps going up while adding that it is proving to be a financial burden to the GPF. In this recent case of an autopsy conducted on the unidentified accident victim, Gouveia explained that a court order was granted by a judge.
The judge, he continued, signed the legal documents for the autopsy to be conducted on the body in the presence of police officers. After determining his cause of death, the corpse was handed over to State and will be buried in an unmarked grave if approval is granted.
Gouveia said too that due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the GPF is trying to conduct autopsies on identified bodies as quickly as possible so that they can be handed over to their family members for burial.
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