Dear Editor
THE acting Commissioner of Police has made an address to the public but has failed to address the contentions that surround the incident in question.
The Police Force has standard procedures on the engagement of ‘suspects’ and as far as I am aware, justified entrapment even of a criminal operation and execution by snipers is not one of them, and that is what transpired.

The acting Commissioner alluded to the melodramatic ‘warns of possible retribution unless escaped accomplice captured’ so, this is Rambo? The fictional movie character because it cannot be the ‘Fine Man’ gang, they’re in jail or dead. If this escaped accomplice exists, place a wanted bulletin in the media as procedure dictates, or is this a projection towards another execution? The question here is not the guilt or innocence of the three dead men. The ignorant machismo Facebook display by any suspect grants the creation of a profile, not the impetus for an extra-judicial killing, or a level that permits a military application of certified shooters [snipers]. There is an old police way of analysing as captured in the letter by Ret. ASP Clinton Conway who referred to police deaths during the years 2002-2008 but there is a dossier of unexplained police executions preceeding that period, called extra-judicial killings. Recognized by organisation like Amnesty International, led by the Quick Reaction Group followed by the Target Squad, and the Drug Cartel phantom groups that the then GPF accommodated, and even before them when the media carried the ‘stock explanation’; “He attacked the police with a cutlass.”

‘We’ in the media and the GPF owe this country a sane way forward, not stagnant counter-productive method that will be tested in this or a different age. The potential for losing control lies with the compromising of standard procedures, especially when human lives are concerned. Errors will be exposed like the lie about Assanah’s criminal record, one lie leads to another, it is not with arrogance that Mr. Ramnarine must proceed, but with confident professionalism.

I want to conclude by referring to a conversation I recently had with a senior officer when I outlined my concern based on evidence of the effects of questionable killings by ranks. I will refer to a late friend, Sgt Brian Cummings who was part of one such squad. I spoke to him in the months before he died–he had become an alcoholic–he confessed that he couldn’t sleep; events and faces kept recurring, he was not the only one. The last time we spoke was on the Veeran Veerapen killing. Pen was a media colleague, which was staged to look like a suicide, Brian told me “tell me what you’ve found out, you’ll be protected” there was a witness, and what she relayed to me involved a member of the Target squad. When I explained to him, the most we did was look at each other and remained silent. This current matter and its unexplained elements will not go away, if this is what the acting Commissioner brings to the table, then he is found wanting, it is not citizens alone you are accountable to, but the minds and mental welfare of policemen and above all, the Laws of Guyana. There are precedents, scenarios and information, vetted and known also by the media that we want to remain in the past. This time of 2018 must continue towards a better day.

Regards
Barrington Braithwaite