Police killings

In a media release, Police Commissioner Trevor Paul emphasised that all of these killings are being dealt with. One officer has already been found guilty of murder, three files are already lodged with the Director of Public Prosecutions, two are still being investigated, ten are at the forensic stage, and 22 are before the courts. All killings, said the Commissioner, are subject to careful enquiry and review to ensure that justice is served.

This may indeed be so. And some members of the public might even feel that one police killing a month is relatively low given the runaway murder rate. However, the majority of these killings have not involved shoot-outs between police officers and criminals.

Instead, the victims have been citizens, with or without criminal records, who were invariably from working-class backgrounds and/or high-crime areas. And, even if some of these persons may have been involved in some sort of crime when confronted by the police, the penalty for, say, burglary is still not death.

We recognise, of course, that the police have a dangerous and difficult job to do. But we also recognise that it is often a lack of professionalism which has created situations where persons have been killed by officers in suspicious circumstances.

Confronted by violent individuals who may be armed only with a cutlass or piece of wood, for example, officers seem to lack either the knowledge or the ability to shoot only to wound, or disarm.

And some officers are also wont to view citizens as the enemy, rather than persons to be protected. This is especially so when the citizens are from poor backgrounds.

In his media release, Commissioner Paul noted that the Police Complaints Division has had its staff increased from “16 investigating officers to 58 officers and supporting clerical and data entry personnel.”

It is not clear from the CoP’s phrasing that the extra 42 officers are investigators, but we hope this increased manpower will be reflected in the statistics of the next PCD report, which has typically showed very low percentages of closed cases.

Moreover, most of the complaints against officers do not have to do with murder, but with failure to perform their duties and abuse of power.

Both need to be dealt with handily, and by this we do not mean the mere shifting of delinquent officers to other police stations.

The abuse of persons in custody is an especially egregious issue which the CoP has so far entirely failed to tackle.

And yet this is how officers end up killing innocent persons — for the physical abuse of persons can, if the officer gets away with it long enough, easily become a disregard for life.

Indeed, perhaps the only reason that a young officer was convicted for murder was because he was foolish enough to kill the victim in the middle of a fete.

So, while we are happy to hear that fatal shootings by police officers are always investigated, it is clear that more needs to be done to reduce the abuse of power in the Police Service.