Tag Archives: police killings

The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) has investigated 150 fatal police shooting incidents resulting in 258 deaths from 2011 to March 2019. According to their statistics, the average annual number of police killings between 2013 and 2019 works out to about 34 deaths per year. Across the same time period in …

Dem old people and dem does say: ‘when yuh neighbour house on fire, wet yuh own’. So I trying to wet mine, with this open rant to Lasana Liburd and my not-so-secret crush Dr Sheila Rampersad. Because we Trinis doh learn, we doh like to connect things and we love to live …

The ghoulish picture of our police commissioner over the dead body of a murder suspect (Express, 28 December) reminded me of Nietzsche’s aphorism: ‘He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster… if thou gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze into …

“Hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy.” Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Nobel Prize Laureate. The spectacle of a former …

An interview with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and his constituents seemed to aggravate a deep wound in that area. What I saw and heard was a man from within the constituency reliving the pain of the shooting death of his mother WPC Bernadette James and asking for some assurance …

“The CoP has also made it pellucidly clear that his statement was not a licence to kill unarmed perpetrators or perpetrators, who do not pose an imminent threat and are armed with lethal weapons… How much clearer can the CoP be?” The following Letter to the Editor regarding criticism of …

Brace yourself for heightened aggression from the police! That’s the message I received from the recent television interview with Commissioner of Police (CoP) Gary Griffith about the police killing of five young men in Laventille. To paraphrase this very powerful citizen, anyone who objects to his approach either has not …

“Being poor or even living in Laventille does not cause one to engage in crime or any other behaviour, but they make certain lines of conduct easier or more difficult. When poverty or unemployment is treated within the context of strong families and an active socialising church, crime and vandalism …

As much as we may wish it to be otherwise, Gary Griffith is not the answer to our prayers but the symptom of our problems. In our greatest moment of fear, we have manifested and brought him to life as protection against the very forces we have created. Like Phoenix, …

“The heart of criminal law is the degree of protection afforded to the accused… The Police cannot be judge, jury and executioner. “[…] It is seductive in its logical simplicity but the idea that criminals are persuaded by ill treatment, stiff sentences or police killings is a middle-class delusion. It …

Two things we learned this week: One, a mass shooting that does not involve the words “Allahu Akbar” is somehow not considered terrorism, even if the murders are done in the pursuit of political aims. And two, United States law enforcement officers get really creative when the crazy dude at …