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Post-mortem results have revealed that the constable died from cardiac arrest, something family members find hard to believe. However, the post-mortem is what it is from a doctor who is well trained in his field, so there is no reason to doubt the results. So whether he died from an electric shock from an exposed wire or from cardiac arrest this does not in any way lessen the bravery he showed that day in trying to recapture that felon. He would be remembered for his courage at a time when he was the lone officer on duty. Again, I give my sympathy to the relatives and friends of this brave officer.
The police are in the news for all the wrong reasons, due to the fact that some members of society are making them out to be foolish, among other derogatory things.
The police and by extension the armed forces are taking a beating these days from the dubious army of persons all because they seem to be losing the fight against crime.
But wait a second, did I say losing the fight against crime? Yes,it is a fact that some gloat over this anomaly that the police seem to be losing the fight. At a time when we should be sympathetic to the police’s cause, they are as it were “making merry” when things go wrong with them. And there are lots of reasons for this kind of nonsense, the chief one being that the government has changed. This is the main reason for all of this.
I challenge anyone to prove to me, giving reasons other than political, why sentiments towards the police drastically changed after 1992? The police, as is the Chronicle newspaper, were well loved by those persons, but all of this changed when the PPP came to office, pure and simple. If I should crave your indulgence, which Home Affairs Minister or Police Commissioner post-1992 was ever embraced by the Opposition? You, my readers, have the answer, so let’s not fool ourselves where police matters are concerned.
We know what’s going on. The police force is overwhelmingly a Black labour force and their modus operandi was and still is the same so what’s the charge? I will use the Cleto case as a frame of reference. Here we have a police officer brazenly gunned down and when the prime suspect is rounded up, the excuses come pouring in, “it wasn’t him … it was a brave Indian boy.” Which brave Indian boy? The same nonsensical argument used in the treason case with Benschop “it was an Indian Guy.” You get my point. Further to it, you see the battery of lawyers who rushed to defend him committing the criminal offence of badgering key witnesses to the act.
Hughes and company did the criminal thing in targeting the eyewitnesses who would have seen to it that a conviction is upheld.
But as the story goes, they skilfully whittled away at the witnesses which meant that there wasn’t any chance of a conviction. The DPP knew this which caused her to close the case and proceed no further.
How they got away with it is anybody’s guess. At this stage of our conversation my friend quickly made the remark that the police were guilty of beating the suspect into signing a confession statement which caused the DPP to forego trial.
What police brutality? I then retorted how did the police carry out their duties during the PNC era? I couldn’t get an answer because we know the brutal way the police went about their work with criminals. In those days, the force had a reputation of “getting the truth” by brutal means only. A fearsome force!. “Burnham’s Bulldogs” who had to be believed when confession statements were taken and whose testimony was “gospel” in court. All of that changed when the PPP/C came to office. Criminals do not fear the police anymore nor are we ever to believe a confession statement.
So Hughes and his criminal compatriots can jump and shout now because they know fully well the loopholes that still exist in the way the police do their work. But let me caution them with that immoral victory of theirs. It will be short-lived because change is coming to the police force.
