Hindsight, as the saying goes, is 20-20. No doubt, despite the drivel which acting Police Commissioner Floyd McDonald fed the media on Thursday, and through them the nation, he must be seeing clearly now.
The storming of the Office of the President should not have happened and heads should roll for it.
Instead of jumping up the very next day and attesting that that the officers on duty at the Presidential Complex were not negligent, the Police Commissioner should have kept his counsel. Perhaps, instead, he should have announced an investigation into the incident. This is the fare to which we are accustomed and in this particular instance, it would have gone down well. An examination of the public information available bears this out.
The Police Commissioner said that a decision was taken not to stop the illegal march on the East Coast for fear that violence would erupt. What happened? Violence erupted anyhow. And where were the police monitors Mr McDonald spoke about when the group split? Surely past experience has established that the 'splinter group' usually contains the nefarious elements. Did a police detail follow this group? Did it radio the Office of the President and warn the men on duty there that they should expect trouble? If not, why? If so, why was the gate to the compound just closed and not locked?
Again, experiences in the recent past have proved that the Office of the President is not "sacrosanct" (the commissioner's word) as the police seem to naively believe. That it must be protected at all cost is true. The commissioner admitted that the protesters should have been dealt with at the gate. How? Surely locking and padlocking the gate would have been one way to deal with them, yes?
The commissioner quoted statements made by certain politicians, which the police had advance knowledge of, including that "they wanted to remove the government." Obviously, these were a source of amusement. The police have given no indication that they took these statements seriously, except in hindsight.
Mr McDonald said that fires had been lit on the East Coast from as early as 3:30 am and this gave an indication of what the protesters might have had in mind. Reports were made, he said, about robberies committed along the way to the city; a dress rehearsal perhaps? And yet, he said, the police decided not to "engage" them. Is the commissioner saying that if people come out in sufficient numbers and perform an illegal action the police would not stop them for fear they may turn violent?
And what are the rules of engagement to which the commissioner referred? Did they include using a bullhorn to warn all of the protesters that their march was illegal and that they should return to their homes? Why was Mr Bynoe the only person warned?
The commissioner's glib statements of a "threat analysis" and his promise that "we will not allow them to do what they like in this city or any other part of the country," are cold comfort for the Seepersaud and Persaud families, their employees and their families, the traumatized staff of the Office of the President and the families of the dead illegal invaders.
It is this same lackadaisical approach to security, albeit in other quarters, that permitted the February 23 jailbreak, which was the genesis of the current crime spree. Service and protection must not always happen after the fact.