SOME OF OUR sons are dying. Who will guard the guards?Not only are they dying at the hands of each other, but in police custody.
Isn’t it alarming that, in such a small country, in the last year we have had no fewer than three such instances of relatively young men dying in police custody or in some other manner involving the police?
A few nights ago a man in police custody was found hanging ten minutes after being placed in a cell; and just over a month ago 27-year-old Jamar Maynard was shot by a police officer and died hours later.
The horror of the issue was particular glaring last Wednesday when Jamar’s mother joined her attorney and human rights activist David Comissiong in begging the public for any assistance possible in solving the mystery of her son’s death on April 3.
While our numbers are not as shocking as those in the United States, where attacks by white officers on black men are rampant, or in some of our Caribbean neighbours like Jamaica and Trinidad, it must by now be an absolute source of frustration that instances of death involving local police officers continue to be investigated by the police themselves.
In this, the 21st century, when Barbados is seeking to bring nearly all aspects of national life, including trade regulations, employment rights and general governance up to international and transparent standards, Barbadians are being made to feel as though any attempt to have our law enforcement officers investigated by anyone other than themselves is, to say the least, laughable.
Coroners’ inquests are great, and we have seen laudable results from some, including the Arch Cot case which ended last December, but in matters where the police themselves are involved in the death of individuals, is it unreasonable to ask for a second opinion, a neutral probe into such a delicate area that is fraught with opportunities for corruption in this tiny jurisdiction?
Furthermore, while coroners’ inquests automatically follow such deaths and therefore satisfy the public with apparent transparency, there have been no resulting verdicts recorded where any officer in question has been made to face a judge and jury of his peers.
In fact, the closest Barbados came to such a decision was in 1986 when Coroner Theodore Walcott left Barbadians aghast with his ruling that Sergeant Anderson Bowen had murdered wanted man Grantley Farmer of Jericho, St George. The matter was ultimately dismissed by Director of Public Prosecutions Cecil Tulloch, QC, but I’ll never forget, as a young sub-editor, the screaming all-caps headline: Murder, He Wrote.
I have nothing against the Royal Barbados Police Force, since I enjoy the acquaintance of several officers, while others are former schoolmates, and at least two basically grew up with me in my old neighbourhood of Paddock Road and its environs; but the milk of human kindness must also extend to grieving parents who believe their sons did not deserve such untimely deaths.
Furthermore, I have covered the courts as a journalist and heard corroborative evidence by two or more officers that sounded so incredibly similar that I used to wonder whether the Police Force gave out prizes for recitations. If this occurs in everyday criminal matters, imagine the impunity with which it can be done if officers are defending themselves.
And who can forget Coroner Faith Marshall-Harris’ words to two officers during the I’Akobi Maloney inquest: “It is clear to a blind man on a galloping horse that the two of you sat down and, word for word, wrote a single statement, and the problem is I don’t really have a corroboration.”
Ridiculous!
Many of us in this country have sons, but we quickly dismiss matters regarding Maloney, Maynard, Curtis Callender, Glenroy Brathwaite et al. because they did not occur in our homes. But they are right on our doorsteps!
I can’t afford to wait until something happens to me or my sons, God forbid, and then suddenly begin to understand what others have been facing for years. And while I carefully weigh my views against the mindset of most Barbadian parents that some of their criminal-minded sons are “good” and “quiet” boys who “don’t trouble nobody”, I wish to humbly join the call that investigations into these deaths by neutrally carried out.
Maybe a time will come when the eminent Caribbean Court of Justice can look into some of these cases as well.
Ricky Jordan is an Associate Editor of THE NATION.
