Well it can't be re­al - nah man - there I was tak­ing in the Tues­day evening news. Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer on mur­der charge comes out of a po­lice ve­hi­cle in hand­cuffs, fel­low of­fi­cers of­fer­ing sup­port­ing and com­fort­ing words and pats on the shoul­der and back. Okay. Then af­ter a bomb scare - the said of­fi­cer comes out of the mag­is­trates court a free man - no steel bracelets - more com­fort­ing words and help­ing hands to go in­to a black maria to be tak­en back - well back - yuh know where - the prison in­fir­mary.

I could not be­lieve my eyes when the very next item on the news was the tak­ing to court of per­sons charged with mur­der, theft and re­ceiv­ing and hav­ing stolen items. Would you be­lieve those per­sons were hand­cuffed? Well I am go­ing to have my eyes checked. Talk about equal treat­ment be­fore the law? One man charged with mur­der- no hand­cuffs, two men charged with re­ceiv­ing and hav­ing stolen goods - those guys in hand­cuffs - how dey go do dat, dey cyah do dat? It is so sad that those most ex­trav­a­gant­ly ad­mired in Trinidad and To­ba­go are the most dar­ing liars and those who are most vi­o­lent­ly de­test­ed are those who try to tell us the truth.

James Philbert yuh want my help - well hear this nuh man, lis­ten re­al good - big gouti small gouti, same shot. All must be treat­ed the same way and it must be seen by all cit­i­zens as such. Take note James peo­ple like Bernie Ebbers - Jeff Skelling - Ken Lay and oth­ers - re­mem­ber those guys of World­com and En­ron fame? Well not on­ly were they in hand­cuffs, they were in leg irons - and dem fel­las and dem were nev­er charged with mur­der. If noth­ing is done to right this wrong, you are part of the prob­lem and you ought to re­sign forth­with. The of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er de­mands courage, in­tegri­ty, ho­n­our and com­mon sense with en­force­ment ac­tion.

T Clay Su­cre

Long­denville