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Oct 10, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column
For the first time in my life I saw an abundance of wanted bulletins issued for people. I happen to know some of them. I had also heard reports about many of them. The newspapers had a field day because like me, the writers had heard much about these same men.
For example, Stabroek News, in its Saturday edition, had an almost blow-by-blow detail of episodes in some of these people’s lives. And I could understand, because none of these men were household names prior to the jail break on Mash Day 2002. The episodes reported were all post-2002.
Some of these men reportedly picked up guns as they were permitted to do because they were policemen. They were the ones who relentlessly tracked down the gunmen that had magically appeared on the streets and who were making life in Guyana a nightmare.
Then the name Roger Khan appeared on the scene and these policemen appeared to undergo a change in their lifestyles. Many of them were reportedly linked to Roger Khan and the society began to link Roger Khan to drug dealings. There is the saying that if one goes to crab dance then one would get mud. These policemen automatically became linked to the drug trade.
And as if to confirm this they were summarily dismissed from the Guyana Police Force. Then people began to talk about the presence of these men at certain crime scenes, particularly at those scenes at which gunmen were slain.
This past week, then, when the police issued wanted bulletins, the society readily linked these men to criminal activities because of past association. Wanted bulletins had been issued for some of them in the past. But there was more. The United States began to demonstrate an interest in some of these men. Many are now resigned to spending the rest of their lives in Guyana. Should they step outside, then the advance passenger warning system would be invoked, and they would be detained at any regional port and extradited.
During the trial of Roger Khan in the United States many of the same names surfaced, as well as their photographs. E-mail out of the United States began to circulate and there were people who sought the identity of some of the people appearing in the photographs.
As fate would have it, September brought back memories of the days of the crime wave when bodies turned up in all manner of places. First there was the execution-style killing in Cummings Lodge. I had just returned to work after a five-week break. The phone rang almost incessantly. Five people were killed.
A few weeks later another man was gunned down during the early evening in Broad Street. The phones rang again and the news media rushed to capture every detail that they could. The dust had barely settled when two more men were killed in Campbellville. All told, eight persons were killed execution-style within a month.
People began to expect more killings and started talking about the return of the so-called death squad. So it was that when the police issued the wanted bulletins, people immediately began to associate the names that appeared, with the group that was once called the Phantom and which struck terror in the hearts of many.
There were those among us who believed that the police were clutching at straws by seeking to have these men report for questioning via the wanted bulletins. Politicians were of the same view. Reports critical of the police action began to appear. There was the fear that people would associate the critics of the apparently wanton release of the wanted bulletins as being in cahoots with the so-called drug dealers.
And so I decided to talk to certain people in the hierarchy of the Guyana Police Force about these bulletins. Lawyers for those who immediately surrendered had spoken about the move by the police to “round up the usual suspects”. And indeed it seemed that way.
But the police say that they have hard evidence. They say that they had done their homework and that their information led them to the recent controversial course of action. In all, there are about 16 people who are being sought for questioning. In the mix are people wanted for armed robbery. What would an armed robber be doing with a killing squad?
Nevertheless, the police say that they have to do their work. I had heard that the police never attempted to contact the men at locations where they were known to be. For example, I know that Joe Penniston was always at the Blue Iguana on Fifth Street, Alberttown. I saw him there almost every day. I now notice that a wanted bulletin has been issued for him and he remains at large.
There is something here. If indeed the police went for him and couldn’t find him then I must ask whether he got a tip and hastened to make himself scarce. If he got a tip then there is a large hole in the Guyana Police Force. Policemen are therefore sympathetic to some of the people being sought. This could be dangerous.
I am now at a loss to understand what is happening. Will there be charges? Is there a link between the men being sought and the recent murders? Interesting days are ahead.
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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