When Police Shoot and Kill

The Bahama Journal Editorial


We live in a time that seems to suggest that there is a war going on out there; with the police pitted against some of their fellow-Bahamians.

With this in mind, today we suggest that, the time has come [and perhaps, some of that same time might have already come and gone] for those in charge of the Royal Bahamas Police Force to be up and doing with coming clean with all they know concerning matters that now routinely lead to the death of this or that civilian.

And for sure, as one incident yields to another in what seems to be a spiral of criminal and police instigated violence – some Bahamians are beginning to tire of what they say happens to be high-handedness on the part of some police officers.

While we are certain that policing is peculiarly stressful in these very hard times; we are also quite sensitive to complaints coming in to the effect that, police officers sometimes do overstep their legal boundaries.

Indeed, such has been admitted by any number of law-makers and bureaucrats who speak knowledgeably about the so-called ‘bad apples’ in uniform.

Here reform is badly needed; and for sure, there is also some indication that, the time might be ripe for the high command in the police force to review its policies concerning who should or should not be armed while on routine patrol in our heartland communities.

And so today, [and like a host of other Bahamians]; we are all ears as the police make it their business to come forward with a fully plausible set of explanations as to how and why it came to be that a young Bain Town man who was said to be gambling on the side of a street now finds himself quite dead.

We need some answers.

Indeed, while we are not quite sure as to precisely what did go down in Bain Town this Saturday past, when a young man died [purportedly at the hands of a policeman]; we are nonetheless prepared to suggest that fear played a major part in skewing the perception of both the policeman and the man he allegedly killed.

As one man tried to run away from the police; he was felled by a bullet coming his way from the muzzle of a policeman’s service revolver.

In time, the rest of this story will be told.

But for now, take note that, something has gone so badly awry in this land that, police and the citizenry are seemingly locked in a mire of mutual incomprehension.

Evidence in support of this conclusion comes from any number of sources; some of these inclusive of reports attributed to the police and to some of our citizens, particularly from any number of people who live in our heartland communities.

On the one hand, we have situations and circumstances where police are convinced that this or that neighborhood is said to be infested with drug dealing, street-level prostitution and a host of other so-called ‘deviant’ activities.

And for sure, there are all those other reports that are proud to report that, while there are problems arising in some of our heartland communities; none of them reaches that level of panic as suggested by some observers who might have other ideas.

Here suffice it to say that, we are absolutely convinced that much that we hear about what is happening in these communities is comprised of a tissue of lies, some stereotyping and a host of gross generalizations.

Evidently, this juxtaposition neatly explains how –in case after bloody case – the police shoot someone or the other who – on examination – turns out to be somebody’s good child.

But for sure, in a situation where fear prevails, misperceptions will and do arise. And so today, we have a situation on our hands where fear, dread and criminality run rampant; with some of our adolescent youth little more than, rapists in the making; murderers in training and thieves in their infancy.

This they do when they are called to provide bail for this child or that child who is –as the saying goes – held in the protective custody of the state.

Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture.

Clearly, then, nothing real or good can come from this latest outrage so long as the police and the people are seemingly at loggerheads.

Here we go further as we note that, things can only go from bad to worse in this land of ours so long as some of our youth [particularly some of those young men who live in the so-called ghetto] see the police as part of an oppressive Babylon.

By the same token, our police officers must come to the realization that, things are not as bad in these heartland communities as some of the stereotypes surrounding them might, would or could suggest.

November 24, 2010

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International