Dear Editor,
There is an unhealthy despicable theory circulating in the camp of those opposed to law and order and good governance, especially when it comes to the operations of the police force. It goes like this: the police should be very careful when dealing with criminals, that is, they should exercise utmost care and caution when engaging a suspect. Suspect here means an individual/s with weapon/s of who has killed and has all the potential to kill and injure many more, and this individual should be approached with the utmost care and attention. I don’t know if you are getting the gist of the argument and the erroneous message these people are peddling, that the police should be careful about whom they shoot while the criminal can indiscriminately shoot and kill in reckless abandon. Shoot all you want criminal, but police should please be careful about how they shoot.
This is the notion they are getting across in the simplest version I can possibly muster. The criminal can discharge his weapon even to the point of killing the police who are there to protect and keep the peace, but whenever the lawmen respond they ought to do so with great restraint. Utter hogwash! They should try that dogma when faced with a dangerous man.
However you put it, this is their music, this is their song, this is their mantra and once you take that position there is bound to be a lopsided demonic discussion on police work. Stabroek News has done just that in a recent editorial on the Kanhai case where it contended that at the time this felon was busily engaged in discharging deadly rounds everywhere, the police should have gotten on to their phone to try and coax him out of the situation or in another asinine comment, call his brother or some other relative to find out why he is acting in this manner (‘Shoot-out,’ Sunday Stabroek, November 17). Or another ridiculous piece of advice is for the police to manage what it claimed was an amusing crowd. There again, Stabroek News was of the opinion that the crowd was loud in their praise of Kanhai’s defiance and his brazen standoff with the police, which has bad journalism written all over it and is counterproductive to the lawmen’s valiant efforts to curb crime. So, the next time, God forbid, we have such a dangerous situation law enforcement needs to bring along their telephone directory and possibly call up Kissoon, Benschop or even Winston Felix, who in Sunday Stabroek’s eyes is a “security expert” to get that “expert” advice as to the next step forward. You see where I am going with their nonsensical arguments when it comes to criminals of this kind?
In my book the police should have gone there first to protect themselves and second, to get the gun-toting criminal. If he cannot come out to lawmen then flush him out, not with teargas but with another lethal device. Or the patient approach, cordon off the area and wait for him to come out.
He must come out, he has to come out ‒ Kanhai has to come out and he better do so in a peaceful manner or else. I am not going into that deadly situation. Let me explain with a story from the Bronx New York, where the police were confronted with a similar situation to the Middle Street incident in Georgetown. The gunmen were holed up in the building firing indiscriminately at the police who immediately dashed for cover secluding themselves while engaging the shooter. Well in that case they were not so sure as to how many shooters were there so they did their best at self-preservation while in singleness of approach set out to get the shooter/s. The long and short of it is the police simply tore up that building. Lethal grenade force brought the building and their man down. In the Bronx story the family took the police to court for damage to property to which the judge replied that this was legitimate police work that is not actionable in a court of law. If property is damaged in the course of police pursuing a criminal, then so be it. This should have been the approach in the Kanhai case
So this nonsense as to how, when, where and to whom the police can shoot has to stop; my contention is whether it is Tom, Dick, Harry or Beharry, you become a criminal and the answer for that is to take you out ‒ more likely dead than alive.
Yours faithfully,
Neil Adams
Editor’s note
Mr Adams has seriously misrepresented what was said in the editorial in question.
