Police officers were clear on their motives when the decision was made to immobilise a vehicle in which the soca entertainer Benjai, Rodney Le Blanc was travelling last month.According to sources at President's House and the Police Service, Mr Le Blanc was lucky to escape with his life after his vehicle, which was described as traveling too close to the Presidential automotive entourage, ignored signals to back off.
Officers in such circumstances, it was explained, are trained to shoot at chest level into the vehicle to "immobilise" it.Instead officers, caught on video by an occupant of the car, leaned out of their service vehicle and apparently shot low, blowing out a tyre.Mr Le Blanc was upset about the incident and has asked his attorney, Keith Scotland, to tell his side of the story.
President of the Police Service Social and Welfare Association, Anand Ramesar argued: "Enquiries should be conducted with a view to bring criminal charges against the person who would have breached the escort that day."
For a situation in which police fired with intent, the outcome was, fortunately, without major injury or deaths. Both sides will seek to make their positions and points on the matter, but the potentially lethal encounter suggests that there is need for greater clarity in the procedures to be followed when official vehicles are traveling under escort.
It's not a matter that tends to affect ambulances. The familiar livery of such vehicles and the understanding that lives may hang in the balance tends to clear roads when sirens are sounded in such circumstances very quickly.
It's important that in the public mind, this incident shouldn't be seen as one in which police officers shot at a soca star. If officers were justified in believing that security was being broached to the point that a potentially threatening situation might follow, they needed to be guided by their training.
This is, after all, now a country in which vehicles loaded with cement have been used in assaults. After the brazen murder of Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal in her car, caution seems a sensible response by officers assigned to protect high profile citizens.But this is also a country in which official vehicles are often seen charging around on matters of State of uncertain provenance, the aggravation of their assumption of prestige a wearisome presence on the roads.
The situation reached a point of such absurdity that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was moved to severely warn her Cabinet about the indiscriminate use of sirens and police escorts to clear the roads.A pervasive sense of privilege abused has inspired indiscriminate drivers to seek to dive into the wake of official entourages on the move, the temptation of clear roadways and time saved a potent incentive to take the risk.
There is also a lack of clarity about such situations. On a highway, what distance should a driver keep from a vehicle under escort?The Benjai incident is an opportunity for officials to make such situations clearer for the general public and to place more emphasis on propriety in the more sparing use of this disruptive privilege.Public officials should be willing slow down from to enjoy the claustrophobic, distinctly aromatic pleasures of bumper to bumper traffic.
Such adventures might promote more inspired thinking about the value of decentralised governance, telecommuting and flexible working hours in the decision making discussions that design our daily lives.