Rogue cops – only a few around

Apr 15, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News-  On each occasion that I hear the platitude of ‘there’re only a few rogue cops’ an angry shout has to be suppressed.  A few rogue cops only, stand as a copout.  It pushes a crisis condition into cartoonish region.  People can fool themselves, are free to play these games with whomever parties (no pun embedded) along those lines.  For emphasis: the assertion of ‘a few rogue cops only’ has no relation to Guyanese reality, is a hodgepodge of tomfoolery, insipidity, and what Guyanese rightly label as stupidee.  I beg to separate from this standard, and encourage fellow citizens: Follow me.  I recommend this journey for all Guyanese, be they true patriotic believers, pretenders, anxiety attack sufferers, or verbal tricksters.

When the ordinary constable on the street shakes down a citizen under some easy convenience, he does so not just for himself.  The words of the corporal or sergeant manning the supervisor’s desk back in the office sharing out assignments ring with the menace of a bounty hunter: ‘mek shore yuh cum bak with good news.’  Good news means that the constable had a good shift because the shakedowns were good and hearty.  The desk officer, in turn, needs no reminding that the one above him is waiting for his piece of the action.  It could be traffic duties, or that other lucrative one among many others.  To check on and manage properly reports of noise nuisance.  Go through the motions of removing plugs from power outlets, or what looks like wires, while the pocket is heavier than when the offending business establishment was first entered.  There is a protocol in the sequence of these matters, what is now fixed Guyanese culture.  Fixup with management and the noise nuisance complaint is miraculously fixed.  Some fixes, those turn out to be, when 15 minutes afterwards (or less), the music returns like just before the Titanic picked a fight with an iceberg.  It ended up with the ocean floor as a resting place for its troubles.  Traffic and titanic volumes of music are only two of the more popular exploits practised by what I am told are a ‘few rogue cops only.’  Not so fast, comrades; that line is older than the PPP and PNC combined, and just as tricky as the two of them.  There is more of the same blend, involving this patented falsehood of a ‘few rogue cops only.’  Few only, so why worry?

Before I go forward, it must be noted that politicians, whether ruling or in the running for ruling, can only come down so hard on the police.  Come down too roughly on the group, and its members are discovered to possess a special gift -memories longer than an elephant and a crocodile combined.  The result of this awareness by both sides in this shaky formula is there is this fancy dance step about a few rogue cops only.  The police get to keep its so-called integrity; the political craftsmen get to hold onto their prospects by seemingly doing their duty.  I confess openly to having some admiration for the artistry of a ‘few rogue cops only.’  Who wants to risk cops downing tools, or going on extended sick or toilet or lunch breaks?  All of them at once?  Did somebody ask, what about the law?  Since when did that matter here?  An what about the public?  Well, what about the public?  And who the hell is the public anyway?  When citizens are being hustled daily, harassed daily, and shoved around daily, without anybody in authority really giving a damn, how come they matter so much now?  I move on.

Ever hear about the big strike?  It is also like that dangerous cigarette of yore: Lucky Strike.  All smoke and all toxic to Guyanese interests.  Get a hold of this fact pattern.  A junior rank stumbles into a hefty narcotics situation, starts compiling his heftier file.  When that comes to light, the senior man calls him in, and takes away his file.  And his case.  Goodbye collaring a dealer or a network; networking and working towards understanding takes over.  Goodbye best cop award.  Forget about the good folks at CANU.  There are always the Yankees to do such dog work.  Further, local sleuths have earned a reputation for shoddy work and slipshod case files.  Deficient or deliberately dumbed down? Some magistrates and judges still complain about the quality of what comes before them.  They may have some idea of who comes before the people related to an alleged murderer and what comes up in the conversation.  In a nutshell, there is a five-letter word that begins with an m.  It is not matrimony.  I don’t think many Guyanese care that I miscounted.

This is the milieu, a section of it only, in the environment and in the police, and yet there is this awful persistence from Tom, Dick, and Harry, along with Mary and Julie (to keep everybody happy) with this farce about a ‘few rogue cops only.’  I would like to know what is their definition of a ‘few’.  There are good cops in the Guyana Police Force.  Let that be said without qualification or hesitation.  My concern is that there are so few good cops.  The swamp of roguery is that long, and that far gone.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.) 

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