Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 06, 2014 Editorial
The incredible has now become the norm when citizens contemplate the behavior of members of the Guyana Police Force. Not one week passes without another revelation about serious allegations being made against law enforcement officers and for which the Force must be made answerable.
It has not escaped the notice of anyone that these acts which are crimes against humanity are being committed with seeming impunity in an environment where it has become acceptable to make promises that justice will be served without the urgency accompanying the promised “investigations”.
The instant case of the burning of Junior Thornton’s hands at the Sparendaam Police Station supports that contention and therefore the rhetoric on police reform must be seen for what it really is “empty words”.
Furthermore, the report as carried on page 7 of one daily newspaper reveals that “the police who were in charge of the station at the time of the incident were fingered in a similar incident involving the same modus operandi back in 2009”. This is a stark exposé of the darker side of an incompetent police force lacking both discipline and ethics.
If we are to recount the recent happenings there is every justification to ring the alarm bells with all of our collective might. Leaving aside the grievous assault on Tywon Thomas’s genitals, the atrocities beginning with the Colwyn Harding matter, and followed six months later by Alex Griffith’s unfortunate role as an involuntary player in a game of Russian roulette.
Now Thornton’s burnt hands episode weeks later highlights an out of control police force. Regardless of our innate beliefs the government cannot any longer control this police force which has essentially gone rogue. What these incidents of police abuse of citizens are telling us is that as long as you are from a particular ethnic and social background you are fair game for bestial treatment at the hands of our law enforcers.
It might be a good initiative from a sociological perspective to research the relevant backgrounds of the alleged assailants in each of these crimes. The findings of such an inquiry could go a far way towards understanding what impels such brutish acts against a human being, and assist in deriving solutions to an unhealthy and debilitating problem.
The Minister of Home Affairs could point to the millions of dollars that Government expends annually on the police till he is blue in the face, but the fact remains, that no matter how much funds are poured into the force as long as the force continues to be populated by misfits at all levels the citizens will be poorly served with devastating results.
The force is into its stonewalling mode (for which it is ill-equipped) where there is no one willing to step up and be counted as standing up for what is morally and procedurally correct. Senior officers who are in a position to make a difference as transformational leaders are comfortable to meander along a road of abject apathy, quite satisfied with the status quo. The senior police ranks give no hope to those junior ranks who may be looking to them for guidance. As opined before in these columns, the subject minister is preoccupied with the sometimes justifiable criticisms of his stewardship. But that ought not to be any reason for an abdication of his responsibility to provide citizens with a force free from the baggage that it seems content to carry.
Rohee needs to take control of his portfolio and put an end to this inexorable slide into degeneracy.
Citizens are tired of the diet of tripe they are fed as to why a simple investigation into an obvious crime that involves the police takes the length of time it does. If the truth is to be told, there is an almost morbid fatalism to the unsatisfactory outcomes occasioned by what appears to be deliberately botched investigations.
There is no reason why the acting commissioner should avoid making his views on these incidents publicly known unless they are at variance with some undeclared diktat.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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