By Lincoln Depradine
Caribupdate Weekly
June 26, 2013
A police officer’s job is an unenviable one. Imagine getting blame every day for something that ain’t your fault; like enforcing laws you never drafted and legislated and with which you may passionately disagree.
Police work is tough and the overwhelming majority is good people – many are my personal friends, relatives, and former schoolmates.
My only wish is to see some officers use discretion in applying laws that shouldn’t be on the books in 21st Century Grenada and – through the Commissioner and the Police Welfare Association – demonstrating some initiative by lobbying lawmakers for legislative changes that would make better police/community relations.
We have, for example, police every day arresting and charging people for “insulting’’ and “obscene’’ language, and utilizing state resources to bring the alleged offenders to court.
Not long ago, one fellar reportedly said something unkind about the prime minister as the PM’s vehicle was passing. A police security officer had the time to stop, leave Prime Minister Keith Mitchell unattended, and lay a charge against the man.
Look, I could see police acting if somebody takes upon himself/herself and begins to create a nuisance by just cussing up the place indiscriminately. But, to be targeting cuss-birds when the society has more pressing problems, such as trying to stem increasing drug use and violent crimes like murder, is beyond me.
And, there we had a police officer in Gouyave recently trying to enforce a law on prohibiting people from wearing “any military uniform or clothing’’.
The drafters of this 2000 law may have had a genuine fear of military paraphernalia all over the place given the recent history of revolution and invasion; and concerns about bandits impersonating military and police personnel to commit crimes.
But, in the paranoia of drafting the legislation, they made it so broad that it seems gone – and for good – are the days of playing war mas’ and sailor mas’ in Grenada because of the law.
So, mas’ men like Willy-B and Tan Tan have to change their minds about bringing back bands like To Hell and Back andFlag Wavers for carnival.
For one thing, the legislation does not define what precisely military clothing is.
This man in Gouyave, according to police, was “wearing a long camouflage pants’’. However, not all camouflage pants are “military clothing’’. A lot is just fashion and will not pass the uniform test for any army, not even a Sad Sack or Mickey Mouse Army.
But, the police said the officer arrested the man, “having knowledge that it is an offence to be wearing such pants in a public place’’.
If a civilian, man or woman, dresses up in full police or military regalia and decides to walk through town, then the cops have all right to pick up that person and take her or him not to prison but to the mad house. But, the law makes no distinction between such a scenario and a vagrant wearing a camouflage pants, a Spicemas T-shirt and a pair of slippers and walking aimlessly around the place.
In a real life case like the vagrant’s, I believe our police officers should exercise discretion, rather than saying it’s the law and we’re doing our job.
Then, there are the “slave’’ ordinances that still are held sacrosanct. For instance, take loitering. The only upgrade to this ordinance is the replacement of the “Negroes’’’ and “slaves’’ with today’s overused, “persons’’.
According to police, “it is against the Laws of Grenada for persons (read “Negroes’’) to loiter or assemble with other persons (read “Negroes’’) in any public place or open space in any public place for idle, vicious or disorderly purposes’’. Back in the slave days, it was against the laws because it was assumed that two or more Negroes gathered together were up to no good – like plotting to escape the plantation to freedom; or planning to “bun down’’ Massa Great House; or “to thief’’ a goat or a mango from Massa backyard, on pain of being flogged.
But, in 2013, how do these loitering Laws of Grenada square with our right to assemble that is guaranteed under the constitution? And, if we can’t lime – what the laws call “idle’’ – in the public places that we upkeep with our tax dollars, where are we supposed to lime? In someone’s private place?
The cops are warning of enforcing the loitering laws because of concerns of molestation; harassment; obstruction of sidewalks; and loiterers using whatever space they occupy for liming to engage in “idle, vicious or disorderly’’ conduct.
I suspect that most of the concerns – such as molestation, obstruction and vicious and disorderly behavior – already are captured under other sections of our laws. So, if there is any of that behavior, just charge the perpetrators, whether they’re loitering or not.
But, as the laws are, you could be cautioned or charged if in the interpretation of a police officer you are “loitering’’ or “idling’’. All other things seemingly are excuses to get you moving from where you are standing or liming.
And, you could be slammed with stiffer charges if, in the typical heated Grenadian political discussion about NNP, NDC, Tillman and Keith, Mr Officer or Miss Officer determines that what’s going on the village sidewalk is “vicious or disorderly’’.
The next person that gets arrested under the loitering Laws of Grenada should find a good lawyer and file a lawsuit against the state; not against the police. Good cops are just enforcing bad laws.
I would just mention in passing my pet peeve – the run-away “Negro’’ slave descriptions that police publish when looking for male suspects.
It’s unclear to me how the public is supposed to help police if all suspects have precisely the same size and dimension of lips, mouths, ears, noses and foreheads.
But, I suppose, the descriptions are on the books. And, no one is willing or able to change anything that’s on the law books, even if it were put there by Christopher Columbus in 1498.
Reproduced with permission from Caribupdate Weekly