Yvonne Webb

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs has asked Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy to in­ter­vene and ad­dress state­ments made by Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney that the Po­lice Ser­vice has be­come a "run­away ser­vice". Vol­ney made the com­ment on Wednes­day at a news brief­ing where he spoke on the death of At­i­ba Dun­can, who was shot by po­lice last week at Mt D'Or, Champs Fleurs. Yes­ter­day, the CoP's of­fice, through Sharon Lee As­sang, Di­rec­tor, Pub­lic Af­fairs Unit, said Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs has re­quest­ed the in­ter­ven­tion of John Sandy on the mat­ter as the min­is­ter's state­ments may have far-reach­ing con­se­quences for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the shoot­ing that is present­ly un­der­way. The state­ment said the in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments "may prej­u­dice the out­come and in­tegri­ty of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion as well as any po­ten­tial court case."

Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed by Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Sgt Anand Rame­sar, who called on Vol­ney to with­draw the state­ments and apol­o­gise to the mem­bers of the ser­vice who have been in­jured by his com­ments. ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­icks, pres­i­dent of the Po­lice First Di­vi­sion As­so­ci­a­tion al­so ex­pressed the view that the po­lice had been con­demned with­out a tri­al, and cau­tioned the for­mer judge of be­ing "judge, ju­ry and ex­e­cu­tion­er." Vol­ney, at a news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, ac­cused the po­lice of not on­ly abus­ing their pow­er, but tam­per­ing with ev­i­dence. He called on Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs to sus­pend the of­fi­cers in­volved in the in­ci­dent, whom he ac­cused of shoot­ing Dun­can in his back as he was flee­ing. He de­scribed the death as a homi­cide. Yes­ter­day, the CoP's of­fice is­sued a state­ment out­lin­ing the pro­ce­dures fol­lowed in the dis­charge of a po­lice firearm, which re­sults in se­ri­ous harm or death.

"In such a cir­cum­stance, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­duct­ed and if the ev­i­dence sup­ports crim­i­nal cul­pa­bil­i­ty, those in­volved are brought be­fore the court," the state­ment said. It con­tin­ued: "The pub­lic must un­der­stand that po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions are crit­i­cal in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of cul­pa­bil­i­ty in the law­ful use of force in­volv­ing the dis­charge of a po­lice firearm. It is the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion who is the per­son who makes the de­ter­mi­na­tion as to who will be charged for any of­fence. His de­ter­mi­na­tion is based on ev­i­dence and in­ves­ti­ga­tions car­ried out by an in­ves­ti­ga­tor." Fred­er­icks said Vol­ney's sug­ges­tion, that po­lice had a habit of go­ing in­to poor com­mu­ni­ties and caus­ing hav­oc by look­ing for small pieces of weed to ha­rass the peace­ful res­i­dents, was "a very dan­ger­ous and emo­tion­al re­sponse."

He said the state­ment had the abil­i­ty to bring a kind of con­tempt to the work of the po­lice.

Fred­er­icks al­so said that while a homi­cide had been com­mit­ted, there are in­ten­tion­al and non-in­ten­tion­al homi­cides. "The im­pres­sion giv­en seems to sug­gest that homi­cide is one in which some­body took the ac­tion in­ten­tion­al­ly." Fred­er­icks said the po­lice ser­vice is one of the or­gan­i­sa­tions which in­ves­ti­gates mem­bers op­er­at­ing out­side of the law and brings them to jus­tice, and in this case, al­so wel­comes an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. "As jus­tice min­is­ter, it is re­al­ly iron­ic that he would make such state­ments, when clear­ly there are some prin­ci­ples in law, where there is hearsay and mul­ti­ple hearsay. Hav­ing served on the bench, he knows quite well about due process and the dan­gers of hearsay ev­i­dence. "We are re­al­ly ap­palled by such state­ments."