Commissioner of Police Henry Greene admitted at the Guyana Police Force’s 170th anniversary awards ceremony last July that the rising rates of armed robbery with violence and robbery with aggravation continue to be “worrisome.” The situation is worse than worrisome. It is fearsome. No sector of society seems to be safe from the surge in armed robberies.
The commercial community has been hit hard. Soon after the Commissioner expressed his concerns in July, six armed masked men stormed a grocery store and liquor restaurant at Albion, Corentyne and escaped with more than $5M in cash and jewellery. In August, a group of men dressed as policemen robbed a delivery truck of about $10M on the Bee Hive Public Road on the East Coast of Demerara.
Five armed men robbed a businessman of Hogstye, Corentyne, of more than $7.6M in cash and jewellery in September. In the same month, a gunman robbed employees of AH&L Kissoon Limited of a $2M payroll which they had just withdrawn from a bank as they sat in a car on Camp Street in heavy traffic. Similarly, armed men robbed employees of Desinco Trading of $2.4M on North Road while in a car on their way to a bank. Earlier this month, October, gunmen robbed a Bartica businessman of $9.5M at Good Hope, East Bank Essequibo.
Even small-scale businesspersons have not been immune to the epidemic of armed robbery. In broad daylight one fine Sunday in September, two armed men robbed a female vendor and two policemen of $200,000, jewellery and phone cards at the Plaisance Village Market, East Coast Demerara. On the same day at Kaneville, East Bank Demerara, four men robbed a vendor of $140,000. A sales girl at a lottery sales booth on Orange Walk was robbed of $61,000 and Lotto and mobile telephone cards at her workplace.
Two armed youths robbed the driver of a Banks DIH beverage truck of $80,000 in East La Penitence and four bandits raided the home of a spray painter at Number One Village, Corentyne. At Bamia on the Soesdyke-Linden highway, two armed men robbed two lorry drivers of Kumaka Mines, Linden, of $75,000 and two mobile telephones in September.
Armed bandits have been robbing private households at will. Recent victims include an overseas-based family at Albion, Corentyne who lost almost $2M in cash and jewellery; a couple at Golden Grove, East Bank Demerara who lost $250,000 and jewellery and two families in the Diamond Housing Scheme, East Bank of Demerara.
This partial catalogue indicates the frequency and diversity of localities of the robberies. The police have arrested some suspects but their modest measures have had no discernible deterrent effect on other bandits who mostly remain armed and free to commit more crimes.
The administration, although it was warned of this dangerous trend several months ago, seems to be clueless about how it should respond to the surge in criminal violence. Its four pet palliatives − the much-favoured and over-resourced Community Policing Groups; Neighbourhood Police, Crime Stoppers Project and Citizens Security Programme − have not worked.
The Guyana Police Force’s most recently established Quick Reaction Squad, copying the notorious Target Special Squad’s brute force tactics of shooting rather than interrogating suspects, cannot understand what is happening. Having lost the art of meticulous investigation, conscientious collation of information and intelligent analysis, the Police Force has found itself unable to comprehend the causal factors driving the resurgence of armed robberies and the re-emergence of micro-gangs dispersed from Albion to Bamia and Parika.
If the Commissioner of Police thinks that the rise in armed robberies is “worrisome,” what about the victims?
