BEFORE I go into our discussion today, let me make it pellucid, that I am in no way in support of law-enforcement ranks brutalizing a detainee, or anyone for that matter, on the account that they have broken the law. There are methods that are legitimately in place that a lawman can use when dealing with criminals, but none of those include sodomizing someone with a baton.
Having established that point I will also say this: law enforcement has every right to use some degree of force, whatever you may call it, when apprehending someone who is either resisting arrest or is in some way violent or hostile. Whenever that individual refuses to comply with the officer’s command, then he/she has evidently forfeited their rights to be brought in on peaceful means. Let us for a moment examine the scenario, and I choose the most common form: that is,the police set out to make an arrest of an unarmed convict. On arrival at the scene the convict either runs away or, when confronted by the police, he puts up a fight or, simply put, bluntly refuses to cooperate with the lawmen. Then, according to “popular sentiments”, the police should calmly turn around, with tails behind them, report back to base that the convict refused to come with them. If this is not a joke then I would ask: what is? Let me inform those charlatans who lecture the police on law enforcement that those policemen are required under the law to subdue the resisting perpetrator: that is, roughly put their hands on him and bring him in. Anything short of this constitutes a dereliction of duty and they (police) in turn should be penalized for this.
A greater level of accountability is required when that criminal is armed with a deadly weapon, such as a knife, a cutlass, piece of wood or a firearm.The police must approach that situation with utmost caution, being well aware that the situation can become dangerous and deadly. Therefore, to subdue that individual some form of force must be used to subdue the felon. This means that the criminal must receive treatment commensurate where marks of violence might show up on him. So, to my friends in the criminal fraternity, this constitutes proper police work and not brutality that is so often reported in the press. The police were not placed there to be friends or chums of the criminal, but to do his job without fear or favour.
Highlighting the recent case where the policeman was negligent in his supervision of a detainee in removing his handcuffs so as to afford him the use of the washroom, wherein the criminal skilfully wrestled the firearm from the officer and made good his escape, those policemen seeking his arrest were equally guilty when they went after the offender. Instead of carefully accessing the area where the criminal was located, they clumsily went in, whereupon one of their members was shot at and killed. This is poor policing. That criminal should have been successfully flushed out of that hideout, I would say, more dead than alive. Because here you are dealing with a well armed criminal and there should be no softly, softly approach; all the force needed to apprehend him should have been applied.
Let me remind my readers of another act of poor policing. Sometime during the late 1970s, a prisoner in New Amsterdam used the same excuse when he and his relatives requested that he be unshackled to use the washroom. Once one hand was free the criminal made that handcuff into a battering ram to batter that police officer then made his escape. Now, that officer is guilty many times over for his poor policing skills and should have been dismissed for this. In the first place, he should not have allowed the prisoner any visitors, because these relatives and friends were really distractors who were planted there to compromise the security of the felon. In the case cited above, these so-called relatives made an impassioned plea for the felon to be released of his shackles so as to have proper use of the washroom: “Ow officer, tek off dem thing from de boy, he is a human being” were their exact words. The officer being “very humane” did the silly thing of releasing him, thus walking right into the trap that was set up by the criminal and his associates. As I said, no “relatives’ should have been there to make requests, because he was at a hospital and the doctors and nurses would have taken good care of him. Secondly, a bedpan should have been brought to him, not him visiting the washroom unsupervised.
The point I am making here is, criminals would not be blown away like that because they are not going to accept prosecution without a fight, and a sure way to avoid punishment is to come up with these outrageous claims of abuse. Criminals and their community of friends are smart people and they are seeking every avenue, every nook and cranny where they could avoid prosecution. Therefore, no stone would be left unturned and there would be no limits to their excuses as they ply their nefarious trade. The latest trend of accusations of “police brutality” is another one of these ploys in an age-old battle between criminal and police.
NEIL ADAMS
