Little hope in crime-solving

So said, so not done. While the authorities must be praised for their prompt response last Friday evening, the public will have to wait and see how the arrests of four teenagers connected to the Jamaat al Muslimeen pan out. Muslimeen spokesmen have denied any involvement but, apart from them not being a trustworthy source, they would naturally reject blame even if they are responsible. In any case, the Jamaat has been known to harbour criminals, so that organisation’s leaders may not know - or may know and approve — if one of their charges, inspired by their militant ideology, is rehearsing for bigger things.

However, the authorities will have to get solid evidence if they are to convict the suspects they have arrested. And we are under no illusions about the difficulty of obtaining such evidence. The inherent limitation is the forensic capabilities of the Police Service. In a developed country, the public would have learnt about the composition of the bomb after the very first incident. It is possible that the police do have this information but are withholding it. If so, this is quite foolish, since knowing the bomb’s components might help alert retailers who have unknowingly sold them. Citizens haven’t even been told if the bombs explode by timers or by remote control. The likelihood, though, is that the police still don’t know how the bomb is made.

The other limitation has to do with the motives of the dustbin bomber. Terrorist acts are always irrational, in the sense that terrorists in the modern world have historically had a zero success rate in achieving their goals. However, they usually have specific ends, which gives the authorities a finger-hold in containing their activities. But the dustbin bomber seems to have no particular aim. It has been suggested that his acts are intended to destabilise the society, but even this nebulous definition is mere speculation.

For these reasons, Mr Paul’s follow-up does not lend reassurance about how the police intend to stymie these bombing incidents nor even about how they intend to handle crime in general. "We will be relentless in our pursuit of all criminals, and there will be zero tolerance of any misdemeanour, as the police will be enforcing the law in every aspect of national life," he said.

Ringing words indeed, but zero tolerance has to start with the enforcers, and the CoP has not yet told the public how a gun in the custody of the St James police ended up in the hands of bandits; or the status of the investigation into the shooting of 20-year-old Kenneth Hamilton; or the beating of 18-year-old Devon Sookdeo by three officers attached to the Chaguanas police station; or the shooting death of Corporal Ricardo Guerra at the hands of a colleague.

So the competence and integrity of the police do not lend confidence that they will contain ordinary criminals, let alone the dustbin bomber. Police detecting skills are pretty much confined to tips, so perhaps the most effective strategy now would be to up the reward for information leading to the person or persons who have been causing the country such trauma.