Eye for an eye

AFTER an incident on Monday in which a man was beaten in Carenage, senior police warned the public against the excessive use of force in carrying out a citizen’s arrest.

But the events at Scorpion Alley were more than just a group of people doing their civic duty pending the due process of the law. It represented their taking that law into their own hands and enacting their own idea of vigilante justice.

While the police were correct to warn about the proportionate use of force, it would be myopic not to see this incident as part of a wider, more disturbing picture.

Reports of vigilante justice have become regular.

In June 2018, Ashdale McHutchinson, 49, was beaten to death by Oropune Gardens residents after it was said he tried to abduct a six-year-old girl. Mr McHutchinson’s family dismissed this account and said he was simply drunk.

In December of the same year, a 25-year-old man who stole tomatoes was murdered, reportedly for that offence.

Also in 2018, a man was severely beaten in Chaguanas when a mob attacked him, saying he tried to assault a woman.

In September this year, Charlieville residents beat a man after he allegedly tried to rape a woman.

In Monday’s incident involving a 34-year-old man, Carenage residents carried out their own inquiry and determined the individual was a child predator (the police Child Protection Unit has intervened).

These situations are undoubtedly harrowing for all parties concerned.

In the context of a situation in which the police complain that witnesses to crime routinely decline to assist them, it also represents a shift.

It cannot be ignored that these incidents constitute a direct challenge to the rule of law and the authority of the police officers called to the scene this week.

It is cause for concern that, notwithstanding the inroads being made by police in reducing serious crime, vigilantism is occurring. That speaks to the lingering public perception that the criminal justice system remains at best inefficient, and at worst a shambles.

The slow pace of trial processes, disagreement between key officials such as the Chief Justice and the Director of Public Prosecutions, the problems at forensic facilities, poor prison conditions – the public is rightly dismayed.

Also a factor is the sense of police impunity, given concerns over corruption within the ranks, and the frequency with which police shoot members of the public who may or may not be actively involved in committing a crime. The irony of police officers urging proportionate force does not escape us.

Justice delayed is often said to be justice denied. Until the oft-repeated promises of change in that situation are fulfilled, in the interim, it seems citizens are wrongly enforcing their own law of eye for an eye.