The lead story in the T&T Guardian yesterday, dealing with a criminal gang showing off its arsenal, is quite a telling story. It shows the bold-faced nature of criminal gangs in our beloved country; something which was unheard of a few years ago.
The criminal gang has taken its message that it is "armed and ready" to all those that wish to attack them. And, they have utilised the services of social media to do so, in this case, the very popular WhatsApp tool.
The article points out that the video has the faces of gang members that are uncovered. It also reported that it is being investigated by the relevant authorities.
I was horrified to read that while the video is being investigated and profiles being built on the persons, that "the information being compiled was not sufficient to convict them for any crime."
Are we a mad society? Here we have a video of people with arms and ammunition and presuming that they are authentic, we cannot charge them? Are not videos admissible as evidence in court once they are proven to be authentic? Are not possession of arms and ammunition crimes? Can searches be conducted on such people and their places after appropriate monitoring, etc?
We have the powerful tools of social media to help us deal with crime. All of the authorities must be on board with this technology to deal with crime. Give them the necessary training.
Are they relying only on the cybercrime unit of the police and/or the strategic services agency to do the investigations? All officers should be trained in this as they don't know when they will be called upon to do such and other types of investigations.
We can no longer live in the stone age. Many of the younger officers and some of the senior ones can be put to better use if they were to be monitoring the various social media applications of current and potential criminals where significant intelligence and evidence can be collected.
Elisie Broomes