Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day opined that “peo­ple are reach­ing a con­clu­sion with­out know­ing what has tran­spired” con­cern­ing the deaths of two sus­pects while in po­lice cus­tody.

It was a state­ment meant to tem­per and bring down the tem­po of al­le­ga­tions that are reach­ing a crescen­do of mu­sic truck pro­por­tions which, if not tem­pered, could lead to some­thing worse in a coun­try where cit­i­zens are al­ready riled up.

Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi not­ed many years ago that “an un­just law is it­self a species of vi­o­lence”. It is what we must avoid - the per­cep­tion that there is un­just law in this coun­try, that pos­es its dan­gers to the coun­try.

The coun­try needs to know the facts sur­round­ing the deaths of An­drew Mor­ris and Joel Bal­con, giv­en that the au­top­sies showed that both men died from mul­ti­ple blunt force trau­ma.

There are cur­rent­ly two in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der­way, a probe by the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau of the Po­lice Ser­vice and an­oth­er by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. We hope they will yield an­swers to the ques­tions which are right­ly be­ing asked and put to rest the al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing in the deaths of the two men while in po­lice cus­tody,

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion has gone so far as to call for out­side, re­gion­al as­sis­tance to avoid any per­cep­tions of a cov­er-up in the case.

This sug­ges­tion has been re­ject­ed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young who at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day de­tailed con­ver­sa­tions which he had with Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith and three act­ing deputies as well as the Di­rec­tor of the PCA, David West. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said he is sat­is­fied that the deaths are be­ing thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

How­ev­er, at this time, with Car­ni­val can­celled be­cause of COVID-19, peo­ple are look­ing for all sorts of av­enues to vent their frus­tra­tion. That is why, in the in­ter­est of peace and jus­tice, it is im­por­tant that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the deaths of these sus­pects be done quick­ly, trans­par­ent­ly and fair­ly.

It does not help that al­le­ga­tions con­tin­ue to be made in the pub­lic do­main. We can on­ly hope that the full truth of what tran­spired with the two sus­pects will be­come clear­er when in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plet­ed.

We hope that there will be no cov­er-up. There must be jus­tice for all in this coun­try be­cause, as Mar­tin Luther King said: “An un­just law is no law at all.”

The pub­lic has been ral­ly­ing for jus­tice for An­drea, Ashan­ti, and oth­er young women who were kid­napped and mur­dered, but true jus­tice can on­ly be achieved when that very jus­tice serves every­one.

There are many miss­ing pieces to this puz­zle that must be filled. With­out these miss­ing pieces, none of us can ever feel con­fi­dent that these deaths were with­out sus­pi­cion.

The coun­try needs the truth and the on­ly way to get it is to in­ves­ti­gate. We hope that these in­ves­ti­ga­tions will not take years but will be com­plet­ed swift­ly in the in­ter­est of jus­tice. Any­one found cul­pa­ble must feel the con­se­quences.

There must be no cov­er-ups.

The re­sult of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion can­not be in­con­clu­sive or un­de­ter­mined. There must be a firm con­clu­sion.

Cit­i­zens must be told ex­act­ly why and how these two sus­pects sus­tained mul­ti­ple blunt force trau­ma wounds and died. It is the on­ly way that true jus­tice can be served.