Linden police killings: why the wait, whither urgency, what fix is in

GHK Lall – President Ali was quick with soothing words, helpful ones for the occasion.  A grim one it is in Linden, two really.  Two are dead from police bullets.  Whatever the words of comfort offered, the reassurances given by whomever, nothing can bring back the dead of Linden.  To the families mourning their pain, a little whisper of condolence: pain and rage are justified; there is something called justice.  No matter how much it is denied, it always rises to conquer.

President Ali promised this and that and the thorough.  I heard that dreadful word again: transparent.  And others: a full investigation, getting to the bottom of what happened, and much along those lines.  Good for the president, but not so well for the Guyana Police Force (GPF).  The memo containing President Ali’s comforting commitments apparently was not delivered to GPF officials in Linden.  Two deaths at the hands of members of the GPF in less than reasonable circumstances (way less), and a witness and legal counsel are made to wait for two hours.  I hate to say this, considering the tenseness of circumstances, but all that President Ali so solemnly committed to has already started to crack at the seams.

To force a witness to endure the ordeal of a two-hour wait is more than unconscionable.  It is degrading to the family, disrespectful to the community, and damning to the memory of the recently dead.  Dead in the worst manner, and by hands that now look worse which every passing moment.  With two deaths, not one, from GPF gunfire, the least that the GPF could have been ready to do was show some distinctive professionalism.  And more than that, some care, as called for by the horridness of the circumstances.  I could understand a few minutes, though even that seems to be too much of a concession, considering that two men are dead, and a community is beside itself in rage.  Public rage.  Justified rage, as it feels targeted and victimized repeatedly, as though Linden is an undeclared GPF practice shooting range.  With human beings used as the bulls-eye, and not cardboard creations.

Who had to be waited on, and for what for so long, is my question?  Why any wait to take a statement?  Not over some run-of-the mill burglary, or about a regular street tussle.  But that unpardonable delay of two hours to take the statement of a witness.  I don’t know if the objective was to deter.  Or to ‘stress out’ so there is a copout from sharing what happened, as witnessed.  Or, to make the facts grow cold by that lengthy wait that has so much to it, that only the worse motives could be attached.  Has the GPF gotten so accustomed to conducting itself like this that, though unreasonable and unjustified on the face of it, such has become part of its practiced routine?  The foremost objective had to be to gather on paper the facts, according to the witness, while they are still warm to the touch, because they are fresh in the memory.

There is a thunderous cacophony in a community that could get out of hand within minutes, and within the confines of a Linden police precinct, there is delay and delay and delay.  What the president promised suddenly appears to lack substance.  My difficulty is to reconcile what he came out quickly with, and what happened to that witness just as quickly.  Guyanese have been eyewitness to too much of this too frequently in the distant past and more recently.  The constant is how the GPF is marshaled and misused to thwart justice.  Could this be what was already in the works, took wing so swiftly in Linden?

Against my will, against my better judgement, I seek to give President Ali every benefit of the doubt.  First, that he is genuinely upset by the two police killings.  Second, that he is bent on getting to the truth from a gathering of all of the related facts and circumstances.  Third, that what follows from the first moment would meet every standard of fairness and justice.  And fourth, that there would be some mechanism put in place for greater GPF restraint, so that these shootings and killings by its members do not register the way that they do.  That is, seeming recklessness in some places and some situations; while there is commendable restraint in other settings involving other citizens.

When the GPF could dispatch a SWAT team to Dartmouth that ends up shooting dead an unarmed man in his bed, it has to do better than that disgraceful two-hour wait by counsel and witness.  Compelling urgency so mandated.  When senior people helicopter here and there routinely, then one had to be found to send GPF personnel to Linden.  When national leaders engage in verbal violence against citizens almost weekly, some members of the GPF take that as a signal and deal in their own violence.  When the GPF is seen as a lethal extension, a physical tool, of that verbal violence, then that helicopter had to be found to give President Ali’s olive branch some sheen of credibility, and regard for what was clearly an emergency situation.  If not, he rings hollows, is artificial.

Lindeners will believe, with considerable justification, personally speaking, that they are easy targets and targets of relatively lower value relative to the management and dispensation of law and order in Guyana today.  Somebody at the highest leadership levels should have the decency and compassion to provide the grieving families and the Linden family with a proper explanation of that interminable two-hour wait.  Though I believe that there is no suitable enough explanation that could be offered, I still nominate President Ali or Commissioner of Police, Mr. Clifton Hicken.  In fact, both of them should weigh-in about what happened and why.  I regret having to say this, but all that President Ali committed to delivering from the first moment on the two GPF killings in Linden are crumbling at the edges.