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Oct 23, 2016 News
The Story within the Story
By Leonard Gildarie
This past week has been a tough one for me. I have been saying it over and over again. We are losing too many of our own unnaturally, and there seems no stopping it.
The authorities seem powerless and resigned in the face of the onslaught of what appears to be growing lawlessness. Yes, some of the high profile cases are being solved, but the incidence of robberies are escalating.
Yes, the police will come up with figures that show crime is down or serious crimes have decreased. The reality on the road is much, much different. People are fearful of venturing out.
This is not good.
I watched a YouTube video of a robbery in a busy Water Street business. Bandits brazenly walked into an Electronics City branch at Fogarty’s on Friday and grabbed what appeared to be an envelope with money from a customer. The shocked security, who had a shotgun, tried to scamper out of the way and was shot by the escaping bandit. From the video, the bandit appeared to be a young person.
I was up in Novar, Mahaicony with a colleague reporter on Monday. A shopkeeper was found in her home. She had been battered to death. The perpetrators apparently gained access to the premises by ripping out a few boards. The woman was reportedly tied up, and according to Kaieteur News yesterday, the brutal act was committed by a teen who worked for her. She was reportedly battered to death with a frying pan. While an older accomplice has confessed, the teen, said to be 14 years old, is holding out.
That same Monday morning, I visited a family in my street in Diamond. Their little girl was dead and it was believed that a private city hospital was careless in the handling of the child who went there after vomiting.
The family does not want to go public yet, but language barriers and a wrong injection have been blamed.
At a private school in La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, a teenage girl collapsed and died. There is no word yet what caused her death.
Last week, it was reported that a delivery truck of Banks DIH was hijacked and its workers tied up and robbed and locked in. The truck was taken from Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara, to Enmore.
At Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara, two bandits walked into a popular hangout bar and robbed 10 men. The restaurant is reportedly less than half a mile away from the police station.
I am not even talking about what is happening in the hinterland. Gold miners have been complaining of attacks.
On Friday, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, hinted at possible sabotage at GPL as the cause of the recent spate of outages across the country. I could not help but think of the crime situation in the same light.
Are we seeing a crime wave? Or is there something more? I don’t have answers. What I can say definitively is that people are scared. We need our authorities to not only assure us, but announce actions that will speak of a more proactive stance. The roadblocks at nights will not be enough.
We are venturing into Christmas after a tough year on the economy. The citizens would want something to look forward to. President David Granger and this administration have been speaking of a different role for the army. I could not agree more. We are not at war with anyone. We have our borders to protect. But the police are badly outnumbered at this time.
This is one more thing that I need to talk about this week. We have many cases of serial bandits and known robbers who have been arrested and placed before the courts. They know the system well and have been capitalizing. As soon as they are remanded, their lawyers approach the High Court for bail. They are back on the streets after a few mornings.
Maybe they have a right to be heard; but how about our judges being more careful? Ask to see a report of the background of these accused before bail is granted. There is no doubt that our system is badly flawed. While we want to ease up the overcrowding in our jails, we should be wary of the pitfalls.
With regards to the army, like I said before, we are approaching Christmas. We need all hands on deck. I say let us bring out more army ranks to help us take back control. However, it would also be good advice for citizens to play a more active role. We cannot leave it to the police alone. We have to be the ears and eyes of the community. We all know who the bad guys are.
It is time to root them out. We are, after all, our own police.
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