Pao­lo Ker­na­han

We are a na­tion un­der siege with mul­ti­ple, bru­tal mur­ders be­com­ing the norm in dai­ly news cov­er­age.

Rob­beries, bur­glar­ies and vi­o­lent crimes, in­clud­ing rape and as­sault, al­so stalk T&T, some of which nei­ther grab the head­lines nor make it in­to the po­lice sta­tion di­ary.

Cit­i­zens have lit­tle faith that re­port­ing their vic­tim­i­sa­tion to the po­lice will pro­duce pos­i­tive re­sults.

In­deed, there are some among us who be­lieve re­port­ing a crime to the po­lice might trig­ger fur­ther vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

The crip­pling anx­i­ety af­flict­ing so­ci­ety is fur­ther in­ten­si­fied by the re­ac­tions to un­bri­dled crim­i­nal­i­ty, from the bot­tom to the very top of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

In re­cent weeks, right think­ing cit­i­zens re­mained puz­zled at the pe­cu­liar re­spons­es of the po­lice ser­vice and the Gov­ern­ment to mount­ing ev­i­dence of the ab­solute col­lapse of law and or­der. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in the wake of Shan­non Ban­field's killing, of­fered, "None is im­mune to evil."

His com­mis­er­a­tion was a state­ment of the ob­vi­ous, and with­out any thoughts on how we might stem the dai­ly slaugh­ter of cit­i­zens, is of no val­ue.

In­deed, the na­tion was gripped by the Shan­non Ban­field tragedy. We were all plunged in­to mourn­ing when de­liv­ered the hor­rif­ic end­ing we all hoped her fam­i­ly would be spared.

Shan­non's rel­a­tives be­lieve the po­lice could have done more to find her alive.

For their part, in­ves­ti­ga­tors as­sured they ag­gres­sive­ly pur­sued all in­for­ma­tion, shift­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the IAM com­pa­ny, in which Shan­non's body was found.

They point­ed to a lack of co-op­er­a­tion in gain­ing ac­cess to the CCTV footage of the down­town busi­ness.

IAM com­pa­ny own­er, Ish­mael Ali, told the me­dia the po­lice were giv­en a con­tact num­ber for the own­er's son, who had the pass­word to ac­cess the CCTV footage, a num­ber that was nev­er called.

Peren­ni­al­ly act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams de­fend­ed the ac­tions of his of­fi­cers, seem­ing­ly con­fi­dent they did all they could with Shan­non Ban­field's miss­ing per­sons re­port. So that was that.

An­oth­er week would slip by with more mur­ders and even more wor­ry­ing; a dra­mat­ic loot­ing at the Ben­e­fit the Peo­ple Gro­cery in Barataria.

In what was a sus­pect­ed case of ar­son for the pur­pose of loot­ing, "the peo­ple" gath­ered en masse to col­lect their ben­e­fits. Po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed no one.

One of­fi­cer told re­porters this loot­ing was hap­pen­ing be­cause the me­dia high­light­ed the loot­ing of a whole­sale su­per­mar­ket at Priz­gar Road in San Juan just a few days be­fore.

So it's the me­dia, not the wan­ton law­less­ness of crim­i­nal cit­i­zens or the in­ep­ti­tude and lazi­ness of the po­lice, that were re­spon­si­ble for the post-nat­ur­al dis­as­ter style raid on the Barataria gro­cery.

Based on me­dia re­ports, loot­ers were us­ing cut­ting tools to gain ac­cess to the build­ing.

It would seem, even to a ca­su­al read­er of these events, that this was an on­go­ing crime by a large mob.

The at­mos­phere was un­de­ni­ably in­sur­rec­tion­ist in na­ture, yet the po­lice re­sponse was lan­guid to the ex­tent that one woman asked an of­fi­cer when they would be leav­ing be­cause "they have to fix up."

It is not un­rea­son­able to have ex­pect­ed the po­lice to dis­perse the crowd and ar­rest per­pe­tra­tors to send a mes­sage that loot­ing can­not be tol­er­at­ed.

In­stead, po­lice of­fi­cers ad­vised the be­lea­guered own­ers that they would not main­tain a post­ing at the burnt-out gro­cery and they would need to hire pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty.

Tax­pay­ers fool­ish­ly ex­pect of­fi­cers to pro­tect and serve not "ad­vise and aban­don." Min­is­ter of Every­thing Stu­art Young says the Gov­ern­ment has no con­trol over the po­lice and is not re­spon­si­ble for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of crime.

There are con­sti­tu­tion­al im­ped­i­ments to the state's di­rect in­ter­ven­tion in the man­age­ment of the po­lice ser­vice.

Mr Young's re­mark­ably cool re­sponse, how­ev­er, sug­gests a dis­tress­ing de­tach­ment from the re­al­i­ties faced by us, the vic­timised.

He is not alone in his hands-off ap­proach.

The Prime Min­is­ter's own ex­pres­sions of frus­tra­tion over the crime prob­lem doesn't in­spire con­fi­dence.

With Dr Row­ley speak­ing the ex­as­per­a­tions of an or­di­nary cit­i­zen, one won­ders why we need any of these politi­cians at all. Their hands are tied and we are hog-tied by ban­dits and that's just the way it will be.

The po­lice, the act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er and the Gov­ern­ment face not even a frac­tion of the thun­der heaped on Gibbs and Ewats­ki when they took on the top cop jobs.

The Cana­di­ans were fla­gel­lat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment, the op­po­si­tion, the po­lice ser­vice com­mis­sion, the po­lice wel­fare as­so­ci­a­tion and... you, the cit­i­zens.

Gibbs and Ewats­ki may not have had all the an­swers to our crime woes. But their ef­forts to get of­fi­cers out of the sta­tions and work­ing a dai­ly beat on the streets seemed like the ba­sics of a sol­id an­ti-crime strat­e­gy.

Now, the same so­ci­ety that couldn't sit still when the "for­eign­ers" tried to take on crime, have giv­en all those "com­pe­tent lo­cals" in charge an open-end­ed pass.

The ab­sence of stan­dards and ac­count­abil­i­ty is oxy­genat­ing this at­mos­phere of crim­i­nal­i­ty. It will on­ly get worse un­til those in au­thor­i­ty are made to an­swer for their ap­a­thy and in­ac­tion.