If the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) chairman, Gillian Lucky, is concerned that people are afraid to come forward and report instances of officers using excessive or unprovoked force, then there is cause for real concern. The authority, passed into law in 1993 and available to the public for several years, got fresh teeth with the appointment of the former High Court judge in December 2010, after three years without anyone at its helm.
There is a significant backlog of cases on file at the PCA, but Chairman Lucky has wisely engaged the current state of emergency as a priority situation for monitoring police excesses and has been busy ensuring that the public is aware that, despite the expanded powers enjoyed by law enforcement officers, there remains an institution that will speak for them. As a service, the PCA is available to receive complaints from the public, monitor and review the status of investigations into the complaints by the Complaints Division of the Police Service. The service is a critical third party oversight body for internal police investigations and an important component in reinforcing the awareness that justice is being served on a day-to-day basis.
That capacity is likely to be tested soon after a damning complaint filed by Cocorite resident Garfield Butler, who reported a shocking story of casual abuse of authority that he experienced two weeks ago. No one expects the police to be unduly gentle in the circumstances that they are currently working in. Officers are on almost continuous duty, many of them tasked with working in dangerous criminal hot spots in the still of night and nerves are likely to be on edge. But the police must remember that they are not only required to uphold the law, they must do so in a manner that honours the high ideals of the service and respects the mission that they took an oath to ful- fil.
Butler's story is disturbing and eminently worthy of careful review, but the PCA has also received 22 reports of allegations of abuse of power by police officers since the state of emergency (SoE) started. In addition, the PCA chairman has begun reviewing newspaper reports of such allegations since citizens may not be aware that the PCA is available to them for redress. Chairman Lucky is also aware of other potential cases still to be brought to the PCA by citizens who are afraid to do so until after the SoE ends because they are afraid that they will be victimised by officers who they feel may take advantage of the enhanced powers available to them.
To be sure, many of the reports of officers using excessive force carry with them a patina of swagger that should be regarded as at odds with the powers granted to the force during this time of extended, aggressive policing. Chairman Lucky can be expected to keep careful notes on such pending cases and to follow up on them when citizens are more comfortable making such reports, but the leadership of the Police Service must also continuously remind their officers in the field what the SoE is meant to achieve and ensure that they have a clear idea of how they must proceed in engaging the public, even in potentially threatening situations. At stake is the matter of trust between officers and the general public and that is not a relationship to be sullied lightly.
In addition, officers should be well aware that forced confessions, information gained in situations of terror at gunpoint and a general disregard for the rights and property of citizens will not deliver the kind of results that their superiors are seeking during the SoE. The people are watching this expanded police action, most with some sense of satisfaction that decisive action is being take against crime, but there are those who will seek to use these regrettable incidents to discredit the positive results of the SoE by focusing on these instances of abuse of power. Police officers must uphold the highest standards of their profession in this challenging time and ensure that incidents of excessive force remain at a minimum.