Cherisse Moe

Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Anand Rame­sar is call­ing for an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the killing of 26-year-old At­i­ba 'Hap­py Feet' Dun­can. Dun­can was fa­tal­ly shot dur­ing an en­counter with po­lice of­fi­cers at Mt D'or Road, Champs Fleurs, on Wednes­day.

Re­ports are that around 10 pm, three of­fi­cers on pa­trol in the area spot­ted Dun­can, who they claim was want­ed on an out­stand­ing war­rant for traf­fick­ing nar­cotics. Po­lice said when they ap­proached Dun­can he ran off, pulled a gun and point­ed it at the po­lice of­fi­cer, who took out his ser­vice re­volver and shot the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme work­er.

Dun­can was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he died un­der­go­ing treat­ment. Dun­can's death is not sit­ting well with res­i­dents, who claim he did not have a gun. They staged a fiery protest on Thurs­day de­mand­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his death.

Rame­sar said his as­so­ci­a­tion would wel­come an in­quiry in­to the in­ci­dent since trans­paren­cy with­in the po­lice ser­vice leaves much to be de­sired. "I think as far as trans­paren­cy goes in the po­lice ser­vice, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is do­ing noth­ing. It is an in­dict­ment on the en­tire po­lice ser­vice. I am call­ing on him, as well as Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Gillian Lucky, to oblige to the call of the cit­i­zens and launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion im­me­di­ate­ly.

"If the res­i­dents feel there are is­sues which need to be dealt with in that mat­ter, then we wel­come an in­ves­ti­ga­tion," Rame­sar said. "The Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion stands by its ini­tial call for trans­paren­cy in all ar­eas of the ser­vice, whether it be at the ju­nior or se­nior lev­el. At the end of the day, if po­lice of­fi­cers fall short of the lev­el of com­pe­tence re­quired of them, then the reg­u­la­tions state that the po­lice ser­vice re­quires dis­ci­pline."

Ram­sear said the in­ci­dent was bad for the al­ready tar­nished rep­u­ta­tion of the po­lice ser­vice and more needs to be done to help change the pub­lic's per­cep­tion of po­lice of­fi­cers. "We need to in­vest in the hu­man cap­i­tal and change the cul­ture of the ser­vice, both at the man­age­ment and ground lev­els. It is on­ly by chang­ing the cul­ture of the ser­vice would we be able to see pos­i­tive re­sults.

"We are telling Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs that re­gard­less of how much mon­ey we in­vest, by way of equip­ment and re­sources, the ser­vice will not move for­ward un­less we have a cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion to help change the per­cep­tion of the po­lice ser­vice," Rame­sar said.