Scary crime situation
Crime is out of control. The authorities seem helpless to provide security for citizens
There is a lot of finger-pointing as the country tries to come to terms with the horrifying murder of a soldier’s wife who was shot in the head by a bandit when she drove into the compound of a police station.
People are blaming the police. The Chamber of Commerce is blaming the Government. A Government minister is blaming the police. The police blame gang warfare. The Education system is being blamed .Bad parenting is a culprit. And so the blame game goes.
This murder comes on the heels of the strangling of a ten-year-old girl in John John two weeks ago and sundry other killings. The murder count is 271, which is double what it was two years ago. When Acting Police Commissioner James Philbert was appointed on July 5, 2008, the murder count then was around 234 but by the end of the year it had soared to 504. Therefore, under his watch there have been, so far, 541 murders-a record for the country.
Things have reached the stage where the Police Service Commission which recommended another policeman, Senior Superintendent Stephen Williams, for the post has called on him to provide them with his plans to deal with the spiralling crime rate.
Philbert said that he already has detailed plans which he says will be updated.
The Government budgets over one billion dollars annually on the police and has spent roughly $80 million on an anti-crime plan produced by American criminologist Professor Stephen Mastrofsky. It is dragging its feet on another anti-crime plan which retired Canadian General Cameron Ross presented two months ago. While the National Security Minister Martin Joseph can give no indication when it would be implemented but complains “it is clear that the criminal elements are not letting up”.
The Chamber of Commerce for its part is fed up with Joseph and urges Prime Minister Patrick Manning to “take direct control and coordinate the approach’ of all law enforcement activities to restore law and order.
The question is: can Manning who is head of the National Security Council do a better job than Joseph?
The Prime Minister could find no consoling words for the relatives of slain ten-year-old Tecia Henry but rather insensitively stated that there was more to it that meets the eye.
He has been criticised by many people for his statement and the girl’s mother has called on him to apologise.
The police have detained several men for the murder of Camille Daniel, 39, who drove into the compound of the West End Police Station after she was carjacked, on Wednesday afternoon, by three armed bandits at Factory Road, Diego Martin, who ordered her to drive to Rich Plain Road. She drove instead to the Police Station which is just a stone’s throw away.
She was shot in the head and the men scaled a wall and escaped.
Philbert has urged members of the public that while he deplored the heinous crime they “can drive or walk to police stations when in danger and make their report or seek refuge”.
The problem is that the public has lost confidence in a Police Service that does not respond promptly to crime reports not to mention the fact that the service is riddled with rogue policeman- something that Philbert has vowed to tackle.
While there has been understandable outrage at Tecia’s and Camille Daniel’s murders, the crime situation will, unfortunately, not change anytime soon.
But the Government and the police are accountable and must bring about change as quickly as possible.