Quo vadis police service?

WE WONDER whether the Government is aware that members of  the public are rapidly losing confidence in the integrity of the Police Service and its commitment not only to solving crime but generally to protecting and serving the people. The situation is clearly getting from bad to worse, but the authorities seem paralysed by the same old lethargy, somehow unable to take any effective measure to deal with the growing number of rogue cops and the menace they represent.

Last week a senior officer gave us an insight into this crisis as it affects the Western Division where certain officers were described as “rogue, corrupt elements” who, he charged, were responsible for murdering 18-year-old Sherman Monsegue at Pt Cumana about two weeks ago. These cops move around in a group, he said, and have a history of terrorising the people of Carenage, Maraval, St James, Scorpion Alley and other districts, beating, robbing, threatening and shooting anyone who runs away. These policemen, he added, run drug blocks and shoot anyone who they believe stands in their way.

However concerned they may be over the incidence of crime in TT, we believe that a majority of the country’s law abiding citizens share the rage of the Carenage community over the killing of Monsegue who was simply gambling at the seaside when the police came upon the scene.
This horrifying incident has led to Opposition Senator Roy Augustus asking Minister of National Security Martin Joseph to respond to allegations that a police hit squad is in operation because, he observed, “there seems to be some evidence for it.”  Two weeks ago, this newspaper raised the issue by wondering whether the country’s crime crisis had given policemen the idea that they had a licence to kill. We were forced into this observation by the growing number of persons who have been murdered either in dubious “shootouts” with cops or while in police custody and we gave a long but not exhaustive list of victims.

But, as we pointed out, the most frightening aspect of this situation is “the apparent disinclination of the authorities to thoroughly investigate these cases.” So far, we have heard nothing about the results of any probe into any of these killings, far less about any action or measures by the authorities to bring justice into the picture. Those responsible, it seems, are quite content to let the “rogue elements” have their way and so not only tarnish the image of the entire service but also allow public confidence in the forces of law and order to dissipate. In our view, it is a cop-out for the authorities to say, “look, we can do nothing since we were unable to get the Police Reform Bills through parliament.” That attitude would represent a surrender to the lawless element in the service which is rapidly becoming part of the problem, instead of the solution, with respect to the fight against crime in our country.

It seems quite ironical, in fact, that while the Government has budgeted to spend a total of $68.3 million on the Special Anti-Crime Unit, it is unable to deal with this growing menace within the service itself. In this context,  law abiding citizens, we feel sure, would want to know, even in general terms, on what the Unit intends to spend this huge sum of money and precisely how this expenditure will enhance the effectiveness of the government’s crime-fighting effort. In a one-paragraph reference in his Budget, Prime Minister Manning noted that the Unit is “now fully operational and is performing an increasingly important role in the country’s fight against crime.” As a matter of transparency and accountability, will TT’s taxpayers ever be told about the nature of this “important role” and its connection with the Service or is the Unit destined to operate in the mystic shadows?