Firearms should not be issued to untrained and irresponsible police ranks, since this increases the potential for unlawful extra-judicial killings.

This is the view of Heston Boswick of the Justice For Jermaine Committee (JJC), who says that the creation of an internal affairs unit could bring accountability to the force which he says suffers excesses due to the arbitrary issuance of firearms.

Testifying at Tuesday’s Disciplined Forces Commis-sion of Enquiry (DFC) hearing at the Supreme Court Law Library, Boswick told members of the commission that the days of service and protection had long passed and were now replaced by brutality.

The Commission of Enquiry was set up by the National Assembly to review the operations of the Disciplined Services, which comprise the GPF, the Guyana Defence Force, the Guyana Prison Service and the Guyana Fire Service. The Commission is primarily concerned with the operations of the GPF on which it is to submit a report of its findings and recommendations within the next six weeks.

Justice of Appeal Ian Chang chairs the commission which comprises former Attorney General Charles Ramson, former National Security Adviser, Brigadier (rtd) David Granger, attorney-at-law, Anil Nandlall and Irish human rights activist, Maggie Beirne.

According to Boswick, policemen now, instead of conducting proper investigations, often resort to acts of violence upon the flimsiest of allegations. He considered that in the end, the suspects, both the innocent and the guilty, were killed without being granted the due process of the law.

Evidence of this growing phenomenon could be garnered from data collected over the last 23 years. In support of his argument, Boswick noted that there were 88 unlawful extra-judicial killings between the period 1985- 1988, between 1988-1992 there were 41 such killings and from that time to now there had been over 300.

Boswick lamented that the situation was such that persons were shot down by police and their lawyers had to literally beg to have a Coroner’s Inquest ordered into these incidents.

The JJC was formed following the shooting death of 20-year-old Albouystown resident Jermaine Wilkinson at the hands of a policeman. The policeman was committed to stand trial for manslaughter for the death of Wilkinson, but has yet to be tried before a jury since the depositions from the Preliminary Inquiry have not been dispatched to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Citing the whimsical issuance of firearms as a contributing factor to unlawful police killings, the JJC has recommended that the Firearms Act be amended to ensure that weapons do not end up in the hands of those persons within the force, and even in the wider populace, who lack the requisite training to handle weapons.

It was also recommended that there be changes in the procedures which govern police ranks’ use of firearms, which should be optioned as a last resort. Boswick said as the law stood the police could shoot a man wielding a pin, claiming that he had posed a substantial danger. He queried the rationale behind a man, with anything less than a gun, daring to challenge an armed policeman.

Boswick, for the purpose of accountability, proposed that where guns were used, the burden should be placed on all firearm holders to justify the use, beyond reasonable doubt.

“Do you think members of the Police Force who are not sufficiently trained to carry firearms are allowed to do so?” Justice Chang asked.

“Yes,” said Boswick, adding, “you find rural constables who are just sworn-in carrying firearms [and] many licensed persons don’t have proper training but are in possession of firearms.”

“So what you’re saying is that too many firearms are in untrained hands?” Chang asked, before inviting Boswick to weigh the prospect of whether the force might not so much as have a policy of unlawful killing per se, but rather this was a symptom of having so many untrained and irresponsible ranks.

Boswick said he would not go as far as to accept this view, noting that members of the force often responded based on false precepts and the negative attitudes of policemen.

He cited his community as an example, offering that when called to respond to reports out of Albouystown, policemen usually came with arms drawn. Moreover, he said this created an intimidating image of the force and, coupled with abuses, had severed relations with the community.

When asked by Granger if there had been efforts to repair this broken relationship, he said yes, though he added that the force’s reception had so far been lukewarm.

During his testimony Boswick, despite his condemnation of groups such as the Anti-Crime Task Force or Target Special Squad, said he was not against the idea of creating special units to deal specifically with crime fighting. He was later asked by Beirne to outline the control mechanism which would be put in place to prevent such groups from resorting to tactics employed by their predecessors.

To this end he advocated proper training in the use of firearms. Also, while under-examination by Granger, he said that the JJC had for many years recommended the creation of an internal investigation unit within the police force which would have responsibility for the probe of police departments. He said the unit would be manned by officers of the force who would be placed in every station and rotated on a monthly basis to ensure that they remained untainted.

The submission to the commission is supported by a document detailing extra-judicial killings, including that of Wilkinson’s, featuring eyewitness accounts and statements.

When the hearing reconvened in the afternoon, State pathologist Dr. Edward Simon made his submissions to the commission, detailing instances of police inaction he had encountered.

Simon told the members of the commission of two vehicular accidents, in June and in April of this year, where members of the force, in his opinion, shirked their duties and only offered excuses.

In June he was involved in an accident on the East Coast public road when he crashed into barricades which were erected by police.

The accident occurred in the late afternoon, during a heavy downpour while Simon was making his way back to Georgetown.

He had passed the barricades earlier in the day and had warned the policemen who were positioned nearby of the danger that they could pose to traffic. After his accident, Simon reported the incident to the Sparendaam Police Station, but no action was taken.

Earlier, in April, a minibus crashed into his house and a section of the fence surrounding it. Although the minibus was impounded afterward and investigations were launched, he said no charges have been laid and he has had to pay for repair to the house and the fence himself.

Simon noted that the policing crisis extended beyond merely a lack of response to the public, but also involved some officers going to criminal lengths for an “extra dollar,” such as those traffic officers who demanded bribes.

He however focused his submissions on the failure of the force to respond to complaints by members of the public.

“I cannot hear that an Assistant Commissioner is going to look into a matter and nothing is done,” said Dr. Simon who recommended that if senior officers could not set the right example they should bow out of the force altogether. He also recommended that all delinquent officers leave while the others undergo retraining.

“I think that if the police officers are to show that they are prepared to see that the law is obeyed, the public will fall behind.”