We can only hope that the incident last Wednesday in which a resident of Sophia collapsed and died while shots were being fired by police in the community where she lives is deemed by the authorities to be deserving of a full and unbiased investigation. Such an investigation – as distinct from an internal police enquiry – could bring important issues regarding the professionalism of the Guyana Police Force to the fore. Hopefully, too, it may help to re-focus our attention on the much-debated matter of police reform.
Whether or not the desired investigation into the Sophia incident will materialize is an altogether different matter. Apart from the fact that independent and unbiased investigations into police-related incidents are virtually unheard of, such enquiries as are undertaken by the police themselves rarely censure their own, so that the hope that things will be different this time around may simply be – though we sincerely hope to the contrary – an exercise in wishful thinking.
The Sophia incident marked the second occasion in two days (the previous incident having occurred in Werk-en-Rust) in which residents were protesting alleged indiscriminate police gunfire in their community. The police would have their own view on whether or not their judgments were warranted.
As far as this newspaper has learnt, in the case of the Sophia incident the discharge of gunshots by the police did not take place in a high-intensity situation associated with a gun battle between themselves and armed criminals. More than that, these are by no means the first occasions on which residents of communities have accused the police of indiscriminate gunfire that might conceivably threaten their physical and/or emotional well-being. The other not unrelated matter of course, is what, according to residents, was the thorough indifference to the police to requests that they transport the stricken Sophia woman to the hospital. This too should form part of any investigation since it gives rise to the issue as to whether the patrol may not have been guilty of gross professional misconduct and whether they should not face some form of disciplinary action if the claims of the residents turn out to be true.
One of the questions that Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee and acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell should be required to answer is whether or not the records of the Force reflect that armed ranks have been sufficiently mindful of the protocols associated with the use of deadly force as it relates to the well-being of communities where police operations take place; this applies as much to the trauma to which such people are exposed by gunfire as to the likelihood that innocent people can be injured or killed.
In the instance of the hapless Sophia resident, the police may well argue that since she was not struck by their gunfire they cannot be blamed – at least directly – for her death. That argument, of course, would still leave unanswered the equally important question as to whether their judgment took sufficient account of the various other ways in which people can be affected by gunfire, a question that may well be relevant to the cause of the woman’s death.
Two issues arise here. The first has to do with what residents of some communities claim to be tendencies towards trigger-happiness on the part of some ranks, and if that is indeed the case one must ask whether those ranks are at all mindful of either the injury they do to people on account of their recklessness or the contribution which their actions make to further eroding relations between the police and the public. The second issue has to do with the fact that neither the Home Affairs Minister nor the police high command appear to take the protestations of affected communities sufficiently seriously to cause reported incidents to be properly investigated.
Here, one might ask whether, in fact, the continually growing challenges associated with crime-fighting, including the lack of resources and reduced public support, may not have resulted in a diminished mindfulness on the part of the police of those protocols associated with public safety. In this context and worryingly, there have been claims in some communities that police operations often appear designed as much to intimidate law-abiding citizens as to apprehend criminals and it is this, they say, that is resulting in an ever-widening rift between communities and the police.
Curiously, in the same week when residents of Werk-en-Rust and Sophia were protesting policing methods in their communities, the Force was releasing information attributing a reduction in crime for the January to April 2012 period (compared with the same period last year) to enhanced cooperation from the public. While the police, presumably, would possess its own evidence to support that claim, not a few people are likely to take that claim with more than a pinch of salt. Given what we know to be the conditions of suspicion and muted hostility triggered by a police presence in some communities (and evidence of which is evident in some inner city urban communities and in other communities in the East Coast Demerara) the police would have to present a pretty persuasive argument to make its case for improved relations with the public.
On the contrary one is often tempted to think – and we believe that some people actually do – that fostering enhanced police-community relations has become a less preferred option to a more heavy-handed approach to law enforcement, that focuses less on relying on the goodwill of communities and more on rooting out criminals through efforts that take little if any account of the rights of the law-abiding. The incidents at Werk-en-Rust and Sophia – at least as far as the reports go – suggest that if – as we assume – police-community relations forms part of the training curriculum, its importance appears not to be getting through to some of the Force’s ranks and officers. If – as we trust the administration and the police high command do – we accept that poor police-community relations present a fertile breeding ground for even higher levels of crime than we are witnessing at this time, then the notion that more effective policing can be realized by intimidating and traumatizing communities provides a recipe for even more difficult times ahead for the Force.
An independent enquiry into the Sophia incident that leads, hopefully, to a broader reassessment of police-community relations may well set a ground-breaking precedent that may immeasurably benefit the Force. That, of course, is not up to the residents of the Werk-en-Rust and Sophia communities whose goodwill, ironically, the Force so desperately needs.
