The police force will destroy the credibility of the government--Freddie Kissoon

JULY 2, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

Do a poll after one year of the new APNU-AFC Government came to power and in your questionnaire ask the respondents if they think that the Guyana Police Force has become competent and professional after living for one year with a new government. A handsome majority will reply in the negative There is a new Public Security Minister in the form of the AFC leader, Khemraj Ramjattan. Mr. Ramjattan is someone I know very closely. I honestly think he means well but can Mr. Ramjattan reform a recalcitrant, corrupt, unprofessional police force within the five-year span which is his tenure until the 2020 elections? The negatives in the police force are mountainous in a country with just under 800,000 citizens and with an economy that is small compared with other Caricom states. With our small population, how is it that the police cannot extirpate the bank withdrawal disease? The number of cases of people robbed and killed after they have left the commercial banks with withdrawn cash is unbelievably high. It has been going on a long time now. How do the robbers know how much money is withdrawn? How do they know the person did not take out twenty thousand dollars instead of millions of dollars? Yesterday the police said they have identified a mastermind. Why only now? And there cannot be a single ubiquitous mastermind. The conspiracy is deeper than that. Either the robbers sit in the banks and monitor the customers or the criminality has an inside source. Let us look at the first factor. If the robbers dress like bureaucrats and observe customers’ movement inside the bank, why isn’t there a police decoy, through cooperation with bank management, to monitor them? And why can’t the surveillance cameras in the bank pick up the activities? Let us assume these robberies have an inside source. Employees cannot use their cell phones in the bank, how then can the criminals know who has withdrawn what? There must be some kind of communication between robber and the inside source. Wouldn’t the cameras pick up employees and bank guards on their cell phones? My opinion is that since this disease started over ten years ago, the police have not strategized on it. I don’t think they have a unit that is involved in studying this kind of crime. Too many bank customers have died tragically because of police incompetence. I am of the opinion that the police have not placed plainclothes detectives inside or outside the banks. Sadly, more people will die. They don’t have to. We have a new Minister and a new government and the police force has been reorganized to become a competent, professional institution. There is no police decoy in the bank operations but you can find plenty such operators in other areas. Two Christmases ago, I was walking with Kaieteur News Sports Journalist, Rawle Welch, in Charlestown toward the Kaieteur News office, when we saw a young man trying to subdue another man with dread-locks. We went up to inquire. The man in the shirt-jack identified himself as a police decoy. He said he bought banned squibs from the dread-locks guy so he placed him under arrest. The police can send a decoy to catch a squib-seller but they cannot mount a similar type of operation against people who rob and murder hard-working citizens after they leave the banks in downtown Georgetown. Look at the police record of arrest of young men smoking marijuana. The statistics are staggering. That is because they plant decoy operations in that sphere. The police thrive on arresting young African Georgetowners from depressed areas who smoke marijuana. Several times I have written in my columns that the officer/ranks are paid by businessmen who contact them over frauds committed by their employees. You should see how fast police ranks will swoop down on a business place after they are summoned when an employee is caught embezzling. You call the police to investigate murder, rape, larceny etc. They will come alright, but after Noah builds his second ark. They will not come because the superior rank has no money to collect from the caller. Summon them over noise nuisance and the decibels from the offender will burst your ears before the police arrive. Many senior officers of the police force collect two salaries – the public service one and the private business one. My honest opinion is that the incompetence and unprofessional directions of the police force will cause the first public spat between the new government