Cop-killing chaos

POLICE killings are out of control. From January 1 to March 19, there were 21 deaths. Nine were killed over a similar period in 2024.

And because the police top brass, the police association, the government, the opposition and civil society have all failed to respond appropriately, things will worsen.

This is not the tough assertion of law and order on the criminal element. This is a state spiralling out of control.

According to Gideon Dickson, the president of the police association, the increase reflects a bump in police activity under the state of emergency. There have been 4,045 operations in a few months, he points out.

But that is not reassuring.

Police killings should not be par for the course. The more operations, the more efficient officers should become. There remains no explanation why cops do not wound or disarm. And the wilful disregard of a directive mandating body cameras completely changes the meaning of the statistics.

There is another way to describe a “police killing.” The alternative word, in cases involving the manifest use of disproportionate or unjustified force and a clear intent to kill, is murder.

Cops undermine their own authority – moral, legal – by allowing such incidents to happen. A state of emergency provides no cover for extrajudicial killing and the ultimate violation of fundamental rights. The current lack of legal consequences in relation to each person killed renders each, effectively, unequal under the law. It is a mockery of the right to life.

Mr Dickson questions why no one asks about how many are shooting at trained officers. But there is no moral equivalence between someone allegedly opening fire and wilfully targeting an individual for death, confident that the opportunity to do so has, at last, arisen.

The public suspicion of the latter – which could easily be dispelled by measures to bolster evidence – is what stains the police. Far from protecting the country, this is a recipe for bedlam. A person, whether innocent or guilty of crime, is more likely to believe cops will kill if there is killing with impunity.

Such impunity is facilitated now. Shambolically, cops probe cops in these cases, the watchdog body has no real power, and PNM and UNC MPs generally stay silent whenever a constituent is killed. Human rights bodies, too, have not taken up this cause. Of course, dead men and women cannot speak.

Badly needed is the safeguard of a functioning CCTV network alongside body cameras, witness protection, civil liability, free legal advice for the families of the deceased, and better forensics. It is not too late for leaders to act. “Shoot first and ask questions later” is for the wild, wild west, not sweet TT.