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Police Shooting
Today's Express carries this story of the police shooting into a crowd in Mon Repos, Morvant. After killing one man and injuring a child, I can bet there will be some massive cover up.
"Charles was dead by the time he reached the Port of Spain General Hospital."
Pa-trick has a grand idea of Vision 2020, to take Trinidad to First World status. Someone should tell him this also includes responsibility and that in First World countries there is accountability. Police will not shoot into an unarmed crowd. Especially when the report clearly states the police was already driving away and stopped, reversed and returned to shoot. All I can ask now is: 'what madness is this?'
"The police drove off, stopped, came out of the van and shortly after there was shooting, Hanif said."
Sometimes I wonder how God could turn he back on this small island.
- 1087 reads
The shooting is one facet of what must be gross police incompetence.
Nothing is more apparent when you read about the collapse of the prosecution case against Anita Anamunthodo who was charged with child neglect and endangering her daughter’s life on six occasions. The child's step-father Marlon King was charged with the girl’s murder.
According to Newsday 2007-04-17 "Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington, presiding in the San Fernando First Magistrate’s Court, freed the mother due to the non-appearance of police complainant PC Hamilton (since August 2006) and other prosecution witnesses. The magistrate, in taking a written record of his non-appearance, said the police complainant had been absent since August 2006. Wellington asked if any prosecution witnesses were present in court and the prosecutor replied that their was none. The magistrate then told Anamunthodo that she was discharged. Anamunthodo was escorted back to the San Fernando Police Station, but as she walked pass her mother, Chanardaye Basdeo, in the court’s corridor, she smiled."
No prosecution witnesses no police - and no justice. Police Constable Marcelle Hamilton of Couva Police station is being investigated.
To compound the matter Newsday 2007-04-19 reported that "Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, told the Newsday that he was concerned that a file on the charges was not sent to the DPP for an attorney to be assigned to prosecute the mother."
Well ah now speechless.......................................................................
........................................................so ah better talk about something else.
Jumbie, yuh know dem fella's have bags ah money to spend on Stadium, smelter, big fancy house fuh Prime Minister, lawyers and police from Englan', Airship, helichopter - and the Nation's Health Service, Water Supply, Power Supply and Justice system in real mess. Who money is dat boy? And who put them in power boy? Ah mean dey mus' be like it so - eh?
Lutchrd,
You might have noticed my blog 'Grumpy Old Men'. I confess, I am a Grumpy Old Man, because I have set ideas as to what should be done and when it should be done.
When I was a lil boy, I was taught by both teachers at primary and secondary schools [one teacher I fondly remember being the wife of the late Justice Lloyd Goopeesingh] and my parents, that if you can't have what you want, then make the best of what you do have. Translated: if you can't be the government, then be the best opposition.
Pa-trick has run wild, but that is no fault of his own. The world is full of examples of men who obtain a little power and try to take it to excess. It is those around them that provide the wherewithal to stop egos from swelling, from corrupting.
The police service has been filled by a lot of non-performers, especially at the higher levels. Police officers in a uniform get a little power over their fellow man, and abuse of that power starts immediately.
I can't see a reason for a police officer to miss over 20 court appearances successively.
Another peeve is the utter complacency with which Trinidadians just ACCEPT everything tossed at them. Sigh.
All it takes is for people to have a concience and do the job for which they are being paid. If you can't, step aside for those who can.
Well I must be becoming one of those Grumpy ol' men too!!
<<Another peeve is the utter complacency with which Trinidadians just ACCEPT everything tossed at them. Sigh. >>
I have a degree of sympathy for the apathy of those in T&T for a number of reasons:
So with the combination of a dilapidated justice system, lack of law enforcement, poor police service, and induced feelings of fear, mistrust and 'paranoia' - how much can we expect the average person in T&T to do? To be honest if I was living there now I would probably be mainly focused on getting to and from work safely, and protecting my own patch, You know the sort of 'living in a steel cage' syndrome or Zandoli in the hole phenomenon.
So there is understandability to apathy in T&T on a number of issues. Who want's to run the risk of ending up a Chaitlal Singh? Over to you all out there.
I know exactly what you mean. Still pisses me off though. However, I still hope things can change for the better.
I can't say I had no sense of political or personal rights - ever since I was old enough to walk, my parents have always ensured that there was a daily newspaper in the house and I grew up reading and discussing issues that matter. I guess because this is all as natural to me as breathing (3 decades of daily habit is difficult to break), I find it hard to see why other people are not the same.
I grew up with the same kind of parenting you describe.
I was refering to legally enforceable rights - which I would not have known or appreciated until about year 2000 - 10 years after touching down on UK soil.
Yeah every body thinks they have 'rights' - some even bark on about Human Rights. When I ask them to reference their rights they are usually clueless. So I'm definitely not refering to 'rights' in a lay sense. Like people often said in T&T 'I's a free country...I could say what ah want..ah have a right tuh free speech' - well..not exactly...and it is not free speech but 'freedom of thought and expression' - and freedom of expression (for example) is not an absolute right - no where in the world.
I'll stay clear of legal analysis. Suffice it to say that what I picked up in my parents home and at school was a rather thin crust of what I now know about 'rights'.
But on another level not everybody grows up with the same kind of parenting as you and I. So that may explain why many do not receive any vestigial knowledge of 'rights' - many just pick up a battered version of 'rights' on the colbut (culvert if you more Anglocised). So they might end up feeling that they have a 'right' to walk with a knife for example - you know - the "a...a.. i's fuh mey protection nah...what yuh expec'?"