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What ‘Service and Protection’?

Apr 10, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor

Tuesday 8 April 2025 was a very sad day in Guyana – marking a huge stain on the already soiled tapestry of Guyana Police Force culture. There are of course some individual officers who take their job seriously and adopt a professional approach to it, but those officers are but few and far between.

Police officers in the ungazetted ranks remain lowly paid despite their recent pay increases. For this reason, the culture of ‘hustling’ for money whilst on the job has not been curbed at all. Police officers in uniform openly solicit bribes for a raft of legal favours and with practiced ease invite friendly ‘top-ups’ from motorists they decide to stop randomly. That endemic money corruption leads to a wider corruption of almost everything else the GPF does.

The events of 4/8, as our American friends might call it, provide the most recent glaring example of this behaviour. On that day came news of two young men, Ronaldo Peters and Dan Johnson, being shot dead by police in separate incidents in Linden. That the Guyana Police Force is dishonest, delivers its services at a low standard and acts with impunity are well known facts. The lives of those two young men should not have been terminated by the GPF.

No inquiry has yet been undertaken. It is much too early for that to happen. What is known thus far is that the GPF either lied or was careless in the statement it issued that uniformed officers arrested Mr. Peters – whom they allegedly shot as he tried to escape. The police version of the facts of the shooting is that a gun discharged accidentally as police tried to hold on to Mr. Peters – another GPF lie perhaps? It is regrettable that it is so very easy and sensible to question the truth of statements issued by the Guyana Police Force. Where is the Service and Protection promised by the GPF motto?

Then the police shot Dan Johnson dead as he participated in the protest that followed the shooting of Ronaldo Peters. Why on earth should police in 2025 be deploying ranks with live rounds to counter protesters? Is it a case that the top brass in the Guyana Police Force is too preoccupied with building vast personal fortunes – on a scale that could allow them to leave their monthly salary untouched – that they see not any reason to ask the Government to provide the Force with rubber bullets to deal with mass civil unrest that gets out-of-hand?

It would be interesting to find out whether the officers involved were wearing bodycam. If they were that would either exonerate or damn the police. If they were not that would raise the big question as to why the GPF have bodycam anyway? The officers who killed Mr. Boston in his bed in the presence of his wife when they burst into his Dartmouth home at 4.00am one morning, were not wearing bodycam! The police are so corrupt that they routinely act sloppily, apparently without firm directives and guidance from those above who are too busy filling their pockets or accepting big salary merely for showing up in their offices – on the days they decide to do so.

Murder cases are the only ones that truly gain the attention of police. They cannot avoid investigating a homicide – but then their ineptitude coming from lack of proper practice across the spectrum of their duties kick in. Their attention to other cases will depend upon whether officers involved are incentivised to act. Apparently, there is no real risk of sanction when they fail to act or act way below any reasonably expected standard. I am personally aware of a case involving larceny of truck parts valued at close to $1M by a man employed to drive the truck from which the parts were removed without the owner’s permission – a straightforward case of larceny by bailee – in which all that has been done in 2 years is arresting the perpetrator only after direct complaint was made to the Crime Chief.

The Crime Chief assigned a Detective Inspector who promptly arranged the arrest of the man several months ago. Since then, the police have lied saying that a file was sent to the office of the DPP. Nothing further on record has been done – I make this assertion as an attorney with some insider access – and now it is very easy to wonder just why not? Where is the Service and Protection for those who do not pay more than their taxes due to the Guyana Revenue Authority?

If the Guyana Police Force operated as a truly professional body in keeping with its motto to serve and protect the citizens of Guyana, those two young Lindeners would have still been alive today. May their souls rest in peace.

Yours truly

Ronald Bostwick

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