…but won’t meet with Top Cop
Trade unionist Lincoln Lewis says he continues to be concerned for his safety following an attempted break-in at his Cummings Lodge home on the night of September 13.
Flanked by his union colleagues at a press conference on Tuesday to address a statement by Acting Commis-sioner of Police Henry Greene regarding efforts made to contact him, Lewis questioned which police would only try to make contact with him five days later and on a weekend after lunch which is not an official day of work for most offices.
Lewis again emphasized his distrust of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and said he will not meet with the Commissioner of Police but was not clear on exactly what would make him change his mind. “Were I to assume that the police is engaging in an act of good community police relationship, I would have engaged, people have to be convinced that systems are in place to guarantee those who provided information on the phantom and other criminals that we would not be found dead the following day or our families never see us gain,” Lewis later said.
Meanwhile, Lewis said he was taking seriously assertions from Greene that if he [Lewis] wanted to take the law and his security into his own hand, he may do so at his peril. Lewis denied giving the police commissioner any impression that he was going to take the law into his own hands and noted that such a suggestion was an attempt by the force to increase public perception that he had criminal or unlawful intent. To this end he said he felt the force has opened him to further danger, probably even sending a signal to those who tried to enter his premises that they are free to continue their illegal action.
The police in a statement last week had challenged Lewis’ assertions that “the force are phantoms and the phantom is the force” calling it ludicrous and challenged him to establish that view as true and correct.
Lewis listed public advertisements by US drug accused Roger Khan about his partnering role in crime fighting, as well as him being caught with members of the force with a high tech computer device in his possession and the alignment of some officers with unsavory actions and characters as things which Guyanese would never forget.
Further, he cited the limited scope of the commission of enquiry about the alleged role of former Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj in the phantom squad which left more questions than answers and George Bacchus’s revelations following the killing of his brother Shaffiek Bacchus.
However Lewis told reporters that while he was not afraid, he continues to be concerned for his safety. He noted that individual safety has now been placed in the hands of every law abiding citizen for more than ever now “we must be our brother’s keeper.”
He said while his loved ones have cautioned him to say less, he has spoken out because he did not want history to record him as being silent in light of unprecedented injustices in the society.
