Given the challenges they face, members of the Guyana Police Force are doing a good job in their crime fight, according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GEB Security Maurice Amres.
“Police are often criticized but I think under the circumstances they are doing a very good job and they are risking their lives too,” said Amres, who has been at the helm of the private security firm for decades.During a recent interview, he said ranks sometimes go overboard but added that they are not only dealing with a serious situation but a time when “the younger the criminal the, worse it is.”
“He more nervous than you and if he has a gun in his hand and you make a false move he will probably shoot you because he is afraid of you, while the seasoned criminal doesn’t react like that. The seasoned criminal knows what he doing… if you get stuck up by a youngster, you just hand over what you got because he is a case of nerves and they overreact most of the time,” he explained.
According to Amres, the media worldwide has the tendency to report the bad news. “It seems that when the police does something good it is low key,” he said, while adding that when there is something bad it takes prominence in the media.
He said that when this happens, the media is creating an atmosphere of police dislike where the police are regarded as “the enemy… when it is not so. They are a lot of dedicated policemen….”
Amres also mentioned that there are cases where the police have done good work. He pointed out two cases. The first occurred in Berbice, in 2010, when three policemen intercepted a bag full of arms. Amres recalled that the ranks were on patrol when they came upon two men riding a bicycle and they challenged them. The men, in their attempt to escape, dropped a bag, which contained weapons. “We don’t know where they were going. I thought that that was brilliant police work because the men fight up with them, bite them up and all kind of thing because the men knew what they had in that bag. That was excellent police work… those weapons could have been used to kill innocent people,” he told Stabroek News.
One of the men was apprehended while the other escaped. GEB subsequently rewarded the ranks with $20, 000 each for this efforts. The second instance he identified was the interception of grenades outfitted with detonators, an M-16 assault rifle and ammunition earlier this year. The items were in possession of two teens who were walking along Aubrey Barker Road, South Ruimveldt on January 22. The teens, Kevin George, 18 and Samuel Johnson, 17 were recently sentenced to prison terms after being found guilty.
Amres, while describing that case as “worrisome,” questioned where the teens would have gotten the weapons from. He told Stabroek News that a lot of the weapons come in through the interior. He noted that the country’s expansive borders make them difficult to monitor effectively. He noted too that a lot of the weapons intercepted are high powered.
“I don’t know how these weapons are falling into the hands of criminals…. This case (South) stood out for me. It was worrisome that is only by chance they were challenged by the police. If the police didn’t happen to go down that road they would have gone with the weapons wherever they wanted to go. The youths are too easily becoming in possession of arms,” he said. Recent efforts to reach out to members of various communities, he said, should also be noted.
