Towards the end of last year the Commissioner of Police publicly declared that the extent of the attendance at the annual Police Gymkhana could be taken to mean that the Police Force still had many friends among the Guyanese people. Real friendships, Commissioner, cannot be reliably determined from the throngs of people who attend a free event to entertain themselves. What is probably truer is that the Gymkhana provides a nostalgic reminder of a time when policing bore a much closer conformity to the motto of service and protection. The event once helped to shape the image of policing as a pursuit that went beyond the duty of law enforcement; those days, Commissioner, are long gone.
The reassuring public image which the Force once enjoyed and which events like the Gymkhana had done much to reinforce has been supplanted by one of considerable apprehension, even fear. The reasons are grounded in events that have been firmly implanted in the collective public consciousness and which, regrettably, cannot be erased even by the persistence of the Gymkhana tradition. Quite simply, there is too much water under the bridge; there have been too many extra-judicial killings; too many beatings; too many wrongful arrests and too many instances of practices resembling torture. Regrettably, Commissioner, people often have much longer memories for unpleasant occurrences than for more pleasing ones.
Take the arrest late last year of the popular stand up comedian Linden “Jumbie” Jones. People are far less likely to remember the events of the Gymkhana than those associated with the treatment of Mr. Jones, the latter occurrence serving to reinforce an already strongly held belief that policing has, these days, drifted a long way from the motto of service and protection, leaving in its wake a popular perception that the pursuit of law enforcement need not take account of the rights of the law-abiding under the law.
How else, Commissioner, could the police, having mistakenly arrested Mr. Jones on suspicion of involvement in a robbery then heap insult upon his injury through the physical and emotional anguish of three days of incarceration that eventually terminated in a belated and routine apology?
You might have thought that Jones’ public profile would have spared him the indignities so often experienced by lesser known victims of police attention; that the police may have been galvanized into greater alacrity to minimize the delay in determining that they had had the wrong man. Not so. In the aftermath of Jones’ arrest no less a functionary than the Crime Chief reportedly had no knowledge of his detention and it would appear that the only basis for Jones’ arrest was a report that they had received that one “Jumbie” was involved in the robbery for which he was detained. Thereafter, the police having summed up the extent of the offence and damage inflicted upon him and his family, Mr. Jones, it appears, was deemed to be deserving of no more than a token and off-handed apology.
Occurrences like the travails of Mr. Jones, Commissioner, are internalized, invariably quietly, by the citizenry and stored in a place where similar police indiscretions and frequently worse ones already repose. There, they serve to reinforce the already existing image of the Police Force as a law onto itself, not a friend of the people.
The Gymkhana will remain a popular event which, in its own right, will continue to attract public attention. To assume, however, that the crowds that attend the Gymkhana are indicative of the public popularity of the police, is to indulge in altogether wishful delusion.
