On October 15, Mr Ricardo Rodrigues was gunned down at the GMR&SC bar on Thomas Lands. It was a brutal and clinically ruthless operation. The killer squad knew his haunts and routine and lay in wait. At the moment of vulnerability he was riddled with bullets even as he reached for his own weapon. Several others were injured but the killers had eyes only for Mr Rodrigues.
Then on November 1st, in a remarkably similar attack, gunmen cut down Mr Marlon Osborne in a withering hail of gunfire on the quiet Queenstown street, Laluni. Mr Osborne had no chance. The two attacks are connected by the fact that Mr Osborne was an associate of Mr Rodrigues, who had recently been released by police amid an ongoing investigation into the find of a large cache of arms in Lethem.
In between these two events, there was the mysterious passing of Canadian citizen Mr Jean LeBlanc. He had been injured in the attack on Mr Rodrigues but had not sustained life-threatening injuries and had been recovering nicely in the Georgetown Hospital. That was until October 25th when his condition took a turn for the worse and he succumbed the following day. The jury is out on what happened to him until today’s post-mortem.
The first two killings scream loudly about how the country’s public safety system has been compromised and exposed as unfit. It isn’t only that there were two execution-style killings in short order. Countries within the South American organized- crime arc constantly experience these brazen killings. What is however cause for deeper alarm is the lack of a robust response to the murders by the police/security apparatus.
Though Thomas Lands is not an easy area to hide within or to escape from, there was no immediate attempt by the police to cut off the flight of the killers on October 15 even though the Allberttown police station is not far away. Eve Leary itself is within striking distance. Neither was there a sustained search for the gunmen or their vehicle in the ensuing hours. It was as if the police wanted nothing to do with what the force perceived as fallout from bad business. Unbelievably, even the initial police press release sought to cast a different light on the matter by suggesting only one gunman was involved when it was clear to all and sundry that at least three or four men took part in the attack.
The same thing happened in the case of the Laluni Street assault. The police eventually swarmed the scene but there was no evident operation to gather themselves up for an interception of the killers. So, whereas the police can engage in hot pursuit of a vehicle with four or five youngsters and have it end in the fatal shooting of a bystander, they seem incapable/unwilling to attempt this with killer squads.
It is unclear what the police theory on these two killings is however the stark facts eye us condemningly. There are at least four or five men in the city precincts ready to be mobilized at a moment’s notice who are capable of carrying out the most heinous killings. Yet, these are men with trails, mobile phones, physical evidence, guns, cars, contacts who can provide intelligence but the police have no clue. Even those without any schooling in the arts of the seer can confidently predict that anyone held by the police in either of these two matters will be shortly thereafter released on their own recognizance or placed on token station bail. End of story. True to form, the police have been rounding up the usual suspects and releasing them.
When the country’s security descends to that level of anomie, incompetence and non-performance, then the entire state is at risk. When a gang of killers can operate with such impunity it is but one small step away from the anarchy of the Roger Khan phantoms and the irreversible undermining of the security mantle.
The police are already under much pressure over the Linden shootings of July 18 and the killings of Shaquille Grant and Dameon Belgrave. Their performance at the Linden Commission of Inquiry is worthy of a scathing assessment of the force, its personnel and operational performance. And what of Minister Rohee? He, too, has to be held accountable for the dismal performance of the force in these two recent killings and associated matters. While he has tried very hard to shy away from culpability for the Linden shootings, Minister Rohee is inextricably bound up with the performance of the security sector, particularly the police. It is what he talks about the most and whether he likes it or not the ultimate responsibility rests with him by virtue of his ministerial portfolio.
He is frequently present at graduations and presentations connected with the IDB loan-funded US$20M Citizen Security Programme (CSP). How exactly the CSP has helped to improve the security of citizens over the last five years is unclear. If it has reduced the number of vulnerable youths who could have been enlisted for serious crime then that is significant even if its intangibility makes it difficult to score. If, however, it has had no impact on the most serious security threats facing the country – drug trafficking through western Guyana and organized crime then it would have to be considered a waste of money. Perhaps the principal repayable to the IDB should be forgiven by a suitable amount for each gangland murder that has occurred since the programme took effect. Even the smallest of youths – the main focus of the CSP – were left traumatised by the November 1 murder when bullets struck the Josel educational institute on Laluni Street. That should have been the sharpest prod yet to Minister Rohee and the Commis-sioner of Police that their lack of control of the security sector has left the most vulnerable at the mercy of a killing squad that continues to stalks the land.
There is unlikely to be any immediate improvement in the security situation as the PPP/C government steadfastly refuses to make the transformational changes that are desperately needed in the force. By virtue of this dereliction of duty it must take responsibility for the deaths and collateral damage.
