Dear Editor,
I refer to a few letters in your publication calling on the US ambassador to Guyana to provide some statement on the protests in the US on police brutality. I noted as well the ex-West Indies cricket captain Darren Sammy calling on cricketing authorities to speak out on social injustices in an article dated June 2nd, 2020.
I wish to simply point out that many countries in our Caribbean region rank in the top ten globally for police deaths per capita. Amnesty International for over two decades, has pointed out ad nauseam the high police killings by the Jamaican Police Force. Jamaican police have averaged 140 killings per annum over the last decade. In the 2000s the annual killings in some years exceeded 200 persons. We are not a region that is good at math so, in layman’s term, the Jamaican police shot and killed someone almost every other day. Presently there is a young university graduate from the poor community of August Town pleading on social media for the authorities’ assistance in the alleged murder of his disabled mother by the Jamaican Defence Force at their home. Many of the killings are alleged to be extra-judicial and Amnesty International for years has bemoaned the slow pace of investigations by the national authorities.
It should be pointed out that many other Caribbean countries have also recorded spots in the top 10 police killings per capita including Guyana. I do not have their data at hand. However, Guyanese would be familiar with our own bouts of high killings by police during varying periods. Again, many of these killings have been alleged to be extra-judicial.
Police killings anywhere are deplorable, but I would advise fellow citizens to examine our local and regional situations as well.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address supplied)
