The in­ter­est and ag­gres­sion demon­strat­ed by the Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) in the Moru­ga fa­tal shoot­ing of three peo­ple are com­mend­able. In keep­ing with her pub­lic per­sona, Di­rec­tor Gillian Lucky has not on­ly read and seen the ex­pres­sion of con­cerns of the vil­lagers, but has gone in­to the area to see and hear for her­self the al­le­ga­tions and con­tentions about the shoot­ing. Sim­i­lar­ly, Ms Lucky, an out­spo­ken at­tor­ney, has been mon­i­tor­ing the fears be­ing voiced by the po­lice from the area about pos­si­ble at­tacks by vil­lagers. On a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme, Ms Lucky ex­pressed the need for the of­fi­cers to re­main safe from any pos­si­ble at­tack with the in­ves­ti­ga­tions on­go­ing to de­ter­mine guilt or in­no­cence.

The Guardian com­mends the im­me­di­ate and proac­tive re­spons­es of the PCA be­cause too of­ten in the past of­fi­cial­dom seemed in­dif­fer­ent to years of al­le­ga­tions of po­lice act­ing out­side of the law. It should not how­ev­er be felt that we are find­ing the po­lice of­fi­cers in­volved in the shoot­ing deaths of the three peo­ple to be guilty of wrong­do­ing. Far from it. What is be­ing com­mend­ed is the swift ac­tion to as­sure those peo­ple dis­turbed by the shoot­ings that in­ves­ti­ga­tions will be swift and fair to all con­cerned. One of the re­al draw­backs at­tend­ing the work of the po­lice is the pub­lic dis­trust that the of­fi­cers op­er­ate fair­ly and with re­spect for the rights of all, es­pe­cial­ly peo­ple from low­er in­come brack­ets of the so­ci­ety. Un­der Act 10, 2000, the PCA has been giv­en the pow­er and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to "mon­i­tor the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of com­plaint by the Com­plaints Di­vi­sion of the Po­lice Ser­vice so as to en­sure that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­duct­ed im­par­tial­ly."

In re­spond­ing to the con­cerns and com­plaints of the peo­ple of Moru­ga, Di­rec­tor Lucky and her team are car­ry­ing out their le­gal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. But the au­thor­i­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty do not stop there as even af­ter a find­ing may have been ar­rived at by the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors, the PCA can "re­view, at the re­quest of ag­griev­ed per­sons, the dis­po­si­tion of the com­plaints by the Com­plaints Di­vi­sion of the Po­lice Ser­vice."

In tak­ing an ac­tive role in all that has hap­pened since the shoot­ing, Ms Lucky is putting her­self in a po­si­tion where she would have had some back­ground in­for­ma­tion on what took place. More­over, as men­tioned above, the PCA di­rec­tor has gone to see for her­self and hear some of the con­cerns be­ing raised by vil­lagers. This ac­tive in­ter­est be­ing showed by Ms Lucky could be vi­tal in mak­ing both sides feel that they will get jus­tice.

How­ev­er, as a lawyer and some­one who has been talk­ing for a num­ber of years about cur­tail­ing law­less­ness in the so­ci­ety, Ms Lucky will know that she and the PCA can­not get in the way of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions. The job of the PCA will be to first mon­i­tor the process­es be­ing adopt­ed and to re­view the out­come if and when there is a com­plaint about the de­ci­sion tak­en. But it should be not­ed that un­der the Act, the PCA has quite wide pow­ers to "in­ves­ti­gate crim­i­nal of­fences in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, po­lice cor­rup­tion and se­ri­ous po­lice mis­con­duct." It means that the au­thor­i­ty, as stat­ed by the head­line on yes­ter­day's front page of this news­pa­per, quot­ing the di­rec­tor, is "not tooth­less." In­deed, like the po­lice, the PCA has the pow­er to sub­mit ev­i­dence found to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for his/her con­sid­er­a­tion to in­struct the po­lice to charge or not charge in­di­vid­u­als. There­fore, po­lice of­fi­cers have every re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to co­op­er­ate with the le­git­i­mate Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty.