Reckless driver at large

Crime increases when law-breakers feel that there is little chance of them being caught. And criminals begin to feel this way when a police force is incompetent and/or corrupt. If the police are poor detectives, and if enough officers are themselves law-breakers, then criminals would have little fear of being caught and convicted.

And such a feeling on their part is, in fact, a rational expectation. An examination of crime statistics for 1991 shows a 74 percent arrest rate for murders. In 2004, this had dropped to 20 percent. In other words, our police officers are very bad at detecting — and the criminals know it. These two elements — corruption and incompetence — come together in an incident which occurred last Carnival Tuesday. An 11-year-old boy who was out for Last Lap was run over by a car at Green Corner in Port-of-Spain. With the driver apparently vexed over people wining on his car and so driving recklessly through the feting crowd, the boy was dragged for two blocks before being pulled free of the vehicle. He sustained two broken legs, a broken arm, and a collapsed lung. His survival is itself a small miracle, and he is still warded at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex. With many witnesses to this horrific incident, the police have strong leads to follow. First, the car was a red Toyota Cressida.

It had a missing front light and bodywork was being done on the side panels. Secondly, Green Corner, which is located at St Vincent and Park Streets, was off-limits to unauthorised vehicles on Carnival Tuesday. This means that the vehicle in question probably had permission to be there, which in turn means the police should be able to track down driver and vehicle in two twos. Instead, the investigators cannot confirm the vehicle number with the Licensing Department. But, while the witnesses may have made an error here, how many red Toyota Cressidas — indeed, how many red cars — could have had permission to be in that area?

So the police investigators have been stymied by a simple obstacle, and the third detail provided by eyewitnesses may provide a clue why. The driver, who had exited his car briefly before the accident occurred, carried a police baton in his hand. So, unless he is one of those contemptuous criminals who has been breaking into police stores and stealing iron pots, the likelihood is that the driver was himself a police officer. However, one police source has argued, rather lamely in our view, that not only police officers carry batons. But, if the perpetrator was a member of the Police Service, the lack of progress in what should be a relatively simple investigation, becomes understandable. It is, however, far from forgivable.

Commissioner Trevor Paul may feel he has more pressing matters, such as the spiralling murder rate, to give his attention. But, if he lets this matter slide, he sends a wrong message on several levels. He is telling an already disillusioned public that his officers are incompetent investigators. And, perhaps more damagingly, he is telling his officers that they can get away with law-breaking — even bouncing down a child. And this second message means that the police would have exactly the same mindset as the criminals. If, on the other hand, the CoP treats this boy’s case as an urgent matter, he will send a very different kind of message: that the Police Service is trying to improve itself through firm action, and not just by playing calypso jingles on the radio which claim “We are here to protect you”.