Dear Editor,
My theory is that Guyana is not full of bandits. It is just that a few bandits who commit multiple robberies.
The reality is that Guyana has the most ill-equipped, untrained, uneducated police force, and combined with the lack of resources, it is almost hopeless. They have insufficient vehicles, they do not answer their phones in a timely manner ‒ all of this makes it so much worse.
When a bandit does his first crime, good law enforcement has to pick him up before he commits another. Ninety-five per cent of the robberies must be solved this way. They must not get a chance to do a second robbery.
I am in Georgetown. Yesterday, myself and two colleagues stopped at a bank for five minutes, then drove off another few blocks and parked. A few minutes later the car was broken into and a document bag containing legal documents and US passports was stolen. It was a bad payday for the bandits – no money was in the bags. Today we are placing an ad offering a reward for the return of the document bag.
As soon as we reported the matter at Brickdam police station, everyone knew already how it happened ‒ we were followed.
So how long has this thing been going on ‒ a few years, right? Has Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan ever thought that one of the ways to deter this kind of crime is to deploy decoys around the banks, and do set-ups to catch these bandits.
Haven’t I and Gideon Cecil called on the authorities to deploy the military outside banks in downtown Georgetown to deter criminals from committing these kinds of crimes? Hasn’t the local populace suffered enough?
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
