Tuesday, August 11 2009

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CHECKING THE HEART: Dr Peter Taillac, of the United States Army, attends to Christian Sedeno during a free medical check-up at the Woodland Hindu Scho...

WE were shocked by the recent discovery of drugs and firearms in the ceiling of the St Joseph Police Station. It’s absolutely scandalous. Reports are that officers of the Criminal Investigation Unit (CIU) unearthed cocaine, marijuana and six firearms including a home-made shotgun and a Beretta pistol.

What was that contraband doing there? Who put it there? For what purpose?

The discovery is yet another blow to the image of the Police Service.

It is highly unlikely that any ordinary civilian would have had access to such a restricted area to hide away such items, but that rather the culprits were likely to be the police themselves.

The police have launched an investigation. Meanwhile the 15 members of the St Joseph Criminal Investigations Department (CID) are reportedly being transferred elsewhere pending investigations.

We cannot fathom why any officer in the course of his legitimate duties should hide away drugs and guns.

Did the officer(s) want to use the items for the purpose of running their own criminal enterprise, or alternatively use the items to try to sway the outcome of criminal prosecutions, or something else?

At a quick glance, we could envisage several possibilities.

Firstly, the items might have been hidden away to be suppressed as court-evidence in order to let criminals off the hook. Alternatively, the police might have had the guns and drugs in order to “plant” them on suspects whom they wished to prosecute. Thirdly, the guns might have been used to commit robberies (or worse), with the drugs being trafficked by officers. Fourthly, someone might have made personal use of the narcotics. We have no way of knowing which, if any, of these ends the items were used for. None are justifiable, in our view.

Whatever the reason is, this episode is the latest to undermine the sanctity of the institution of a police station. It comes on the heels of other incidents which had dented public confidence in the country’s police stations. Although no fault of the police, we recall the fatal intrusion of murderers into the car-park of the West End Police Station in June to kill Camille Daniel. We also remember Minister of National Security, Martin Joseph, in June telling Parliament that four firearms, cocaine and six breadpans, had gone missing from the evidence room of unnamed police station(s). Again we recall the incident in 2005 when cocaine went missing from the Princes Town Police Station — supposedly eaten by rats — in a case where two traffickers were subsequently freed. A few years ago, a woman claimed she was raped at a police station.

There is an utmost duty for a police station to be seen as a safe haven and a place of propriety.

While the authorities are trying to create a handful of model police stations elsewhere, sadly this incident has now occurred in St Joseph.

Further, St Joseph is now likely to suffer a shortfall of manpower. There is also the chance that some of the valid cases that were being prosecuted by the 15 transferred officers might now be undermined.

However in our view Deputy Police Commissioner Gilbert Reyes acted correctly in ordering the transfers and indeed he had no choice but to immediately clamp down tightly on this unacceptable situation.

The bottom line in this case is that not only is it a clear breach of Police Service rules, but also involves criminal offences. While one of the officers has reportedly complained to Newsday that his transfer means he will now lose his commuting allowance, we note that anyone found culpable in this incident may well find themselves losing a lot more. We await the results of the investigation.