Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 12, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
With frequent regularity gun crimes are taking place within the country. In these crimes, homes have been invaded, their occupants brutalised and in some instances, there have been fatalities.
The police have made arrests and filed charges following some of these incidents and in some cases the suspects were captured with their booty.
But while there has been a great deal of progress in terms of solving these crimes, the incidence and freedom with which the armed bandits, often described as very young men, have been able to operate, remains a source of deep concern throughout the society.
It is even suspected that in some of these crimes the gunmen are renting guns. Many of them are using these weapons in an inexperienced way and also using them to inflict wounds on the victims.
The senseless violence is driving fear into the hearts of many decent Guyanese, who, while pleased that the police are making regular arrests following armed incidents, are nonetheless perturbed at the regularity with which crimes involving the use of weapons are involved.
Apart from firearms, there is now the disturbing trend of persons stabbing others with knives and icepicks. This past week saw a carpenter being stabbed by another man who was allegedly pelting some children who were reportedly trying to involve him in the playing of Phagwah. Then a minibus conductor was allegedly stabbed by a tout.
In the old days, if you had a cutlass and wanted to walk with it on the roadway, you would normally try to wrap it in a piece of newspaper so as to avoid the blade being made public.
Today persons can be seen walking the streets with all kinds of dangerous weapons, oblivious to the need to be discrete in their possession of these objects.
Persons are even carrying flick knives and ice picks in their waistlines. In the old days, a person would be very scared to be found with one of these items since it could involve a visit to the police station, detailed questioning and the possible confiscation of the weapons.
If you go into certain public offices today, you are usually patted down for weapons. Yet the police seem to be more interested in pulling motor vehicles at the side of the roads and checking for documents rather than searching suspicious persons to see if they have knives and forks concealed on their person.
It is time that the police take a serious stand on the possession of weapons and not just on firearms. It is time that the police carry out searches on touts and persons who are often seen malingering around the market squares or near the bus parks to see whether they have concealed weapons in their possession.
And when the police, in responding to reports of robberies, do capture someone with a firearm, they should press as much as possible to find out where that person got the firearm from.
It is high time that persons who rent guns to the criminal- minded be brought to justice. So far there have been very few cases of persons being prosecuted for renting or lending a gun to another to commit a crime and this is why the police have to pay attention to the sources of these weapons.
Even if the police have to make a deal with a suspect they should consider doing so because, in the end, once those persons who rent out guns are placed behind bars, it will break the chain to gun rentals and allow for the situation to be better brought under control.
There are supposed to be plea bargaining laws in Guyana.
If an end is going to be brought to violent crime, then it may be necessary for the authorities to enter into plea arrangements with suspects. It may be worth entering into deals with some suspects so as to get to those who are renting guns for the committal of crimes.
In the meantime, the police should pay keen attention to the incidence of persons having knives and ice picks in their possession. Unless these persons are selling snow cones or green mangoes, then they should be asked to justify the weapons being found in their possession.
If they cannot, the police should confiscate these weapons.
JAGDEO ADDING MORE DANGER TO GUYANA AND THE REGION
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