I cannot recall a time when my fellow citizens were even nearly satisfied with the performance of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force. Not that we are more respectful of other arms of government. If I am to be brutally blunt, the police force, like other public service departments, is only a mirrored reflection of ourselves—who we are, our standards, our sense of right and wrong, our work ethic. Nevertheless, hardly a day goes by without complaints to call-in radio and talk-show hosts about our sworn protectors of life and property, as if spitting at the sky were our most cherished sporting activity.
We typically ignore the history of the force, choosing instead to gripe about the latest grievance, usually nothing new. Small wonder our meagre efforts at remedying the situation have been as effective as gwen en bas feuille against stage-four cancer.
We need not revisit the record of our police force in colonial times, when authority over these “plantations” resided in the manicured hands of the Mother Country. But then what have we done to improve the force since Independence? By all the evidence, it seems we simply went on with business as usual, with the force often headed by foreign commissioners. As for its real controllers, our politicians, the best that can be said about them is that they may well have succeeded in turning our police officers into scapegoats for their own shortcomings—which is not to say they managed that without, in some cases, the full cooperation of police chiefs.
Consider one commission of inquiry into the administration, command and discipline of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force in 1988. Among its conclusions: “There are no clear guidelines to indicate the areas of responsibility and authority of Officers in Charge . . .” More importantly: “The commission found no evidence to indicate a lack of loyalty to the government and the state of St. Lucia. However, neither the government nor the state commands the police; the Commissioner of Police does. The commission found from the evidence of police witnesses, some of whom were forthright and others subtle or evasive, that the Commissioner of Police has lost the moral right to command the Royal St. Lucia Police Force.” (Does any of this have a familiar sound? Read on.)
“The commission in assessing the [name deleted] competence, integrity and professional energy to command the Royal St. Lucia Police Force has avoided being swayed by his dismissal from office as Commissioner of Police, as such dismissal was not upheld on appeal, nor can judgment be passed on the other matters mentioned by [name deleted] about which disciplinary charges have not yet been preferred. The commission is, however, aware from evidence adduced that the overall perception of the rank and file in the police force is that [the former commissioner] has lost the moral authority to command by example. The scars remain. It is quite clear to the commission that these unsavory events have had and continue to have a most detrimental effect on the morale and esprit de corps of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force.
“Further, the developments which have accompanied them have for some time now manifested themselves in the parlous state of the administration and supervision of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force in respect of which duties and responsibilities are exercised in a most perfunctory manner. In the result, an environment has been created in which other authorities have perforce by default been forced to ursurp [name withheld] powers and authority, albeit by unlawful means.” The report concludes: “The commission has no doubt that there exists the talent in St. Lucia to make the change for the better, provided there is the will to achieve it.”
Maybe, but what about those earlier mentioned remaining “scars?” Whether or not the force was headed by a native son, factionalism has always plagued the organization. Kenny Anthony’s public remarks before and after his IMPACS investigation only made an especially bad situation intolerable. Former commissioner Vernon Francois certainly had his fans among the public and within the police force. That he was made the first scapegoat of the debacle now known as IMPACS only dumped more fuel on the fires of self-hatred that since 2012 have consumed the force. The consequences are to be heard daily from citizens denied normal police services.
Public trust in the police is at an all-time low, quite possibly in consequence of Kenny Anthony’s public pronouncement in 2013 that crime in Saint Lucia is facilitated by cops, politicians and businessmen. Soon afterward he pointed an accusatory finger at Vernon Francois, whom he claimed had turned a willful blind eye to the horrors associated with what the U.S. State department referred to as “gross violations of human rights.” Francois was consequently barred from attending police seminars and other activities in the U.S.
In his recently published book Restored Confidence, Francois wrote that he placed less blame for his problems on the U.S. than on Kenny Anthony “who pronounced he had information on the existence of a police hit list of criminals. If such information is coming from the head of government, how can one properly blame the Americans if they accept it as credible?” Early in his book Francois revealed his intention was “to challenge the irresponsible and altogether bogus address delivered by Prime Minister Kenny Anthony on March 8, 2015.”
In November 2018 the wife of a police officer close to the IMPACS matter took a bullet in the head as she prepared for bed. Her husband was out at the time. Several hours later he was fingered at a police press conference as “a person of interest” and a serial wife abuser. The police attempted to back away from that declaration hours after it hit the local airwaves and the Internet, then permitted the officer to return home—the scene of the crime—without any charges.
Meanwhile there have been conflicting statements from the police about the analysis at a St. Kitts-Nevis crime lab of samples taken from the scene of the shooting. Explanations for why no one has yet been charged with the murder of Kimberly De Leon are offered once in a while, nearly all confusing to the regular mind.
The victim’s husband, as earlier indicated, is no ordinary policeman. In the time of the previous administration he had informed the Public Service Commission of threats on his life by fellow police officers associated with Operation Restore Confidence. The warning came from his commissioner at the time. In an interview with this writer, the declared then undeclared person of interest in the Kimberly De Leon matter suggested someone may have mistakenly shot his wife in the semi-darkness of their bedroom when the bullet was meant for him. Or that she was the victim of a paid hit man. His earlier appeals for police protection had all fallen on deaf ears, he said.
Yes, indeed “the scars remain.” As if the several problems confronting the current police commissioner were not already overwhelming, he is now dealing with an apparent impending storm involving city council cops whose powers were last week extended by an act of parliament. It remains to be seen what it will take to force the current government to alleviate the burdens of the police, including the smarting “scars” from earlier lost wars, internecine and otherwise!
