In a previous existence our prime minister was just another aspiring lawyer accountable for his words and actions. Saint Lucia’s legendary “Massave Tree” was once a seedling. And the monumental social problems that now challenge our very existence were once misdemeanors hardly worthy of comment. With our inadvertent complicity, we fertilized them, nurtured them, pampered them. Often, we turned a blind eye. Or we sat back and watched them grow, grow, grow. And now they threaten to lay us low-low-low.
Consider our police force. Once upon a time, a cop was considered bad if he drank too much white rum too many times a day. The worst you’d probably hear people say about him concerned his tendency to not so gently handle those he arrested for disorderly behavior. The word “corruption” was seldom applied to the police.
How times have changed. Even our prime minister has been on TV telling the population stories about our corrupt policemen. He recently described them as “something of a Mafia, with members hiding their criminality under their uniforms.” It seems our prime minister has forgotten he is our first policeman, our commander-in-chief, whose primary responsibility is to guarantee all who live here are safe.
Actually, our police force is not a corrupt body. It still comprises respectable men and women with a strong sense of duty. Admittedly, the number is fast diminishing. Many are daily losing faith. Some have become disillusioned cynics. They have seen with their own eyes too many wrongs made right by string pullers in and outside the force. Permanent secretaries among them. Even government ministers. They have witnessed too many good men, too many good officers, systematically destroyed precisely because they refused to be bad cops and puppets of selfish politicians.
A few months ago, I reluctantly resigned from the force. My resignation made headlines after I was arrested and charged with desertion. Finally, after several court appearances during which a senior police officer, as well as the commissioner, vouched for my dedication and professionalism, the magistrate Isabella Shillingford declared me guilty anyway and cautioned me. My case negatively impacted several excellent police officers I had often worked with. One of them said to me: “Who will make me go out hunting desperate criminals armed with 12-guage pump-action shotguns, .45s and hand grenades when I’m on my own with a .38 revolver?”
It does not help when the Voice asks in an editorial: “What does it matter how the guns get here? The policeman’s job is to find and take them away.” The same paper seemed to be making a case for the relatives and friends of a notorious criminal whom the police also arrested as suspected accomplices. The newspaper also appealed to citizens to assist the police in their efforts to track down illegal firearms. While I applaud that, I remain at a loss why the paper’s editor was not interested in how the guns got here in the first place. It is not far-fetched in our circumstances to suspect the guns now in the hands of criminals were taken from the police armory. That would certainly explain the reluctance to conduct raids. And just in case there are among my readers some who may be thinking I exaggerate, let me tell them that some successful drug raids have yielded police firearms never reported missing. The searches have also resulted in the confiscation of M16s, and a high velocity assault weapon allegedly used in a yet to be resolved Vieux Fort homicide.
I’m not a madman. A ballistics report confirms my statement. The police explanation? The particular M16 could’ve reached the hands of a suspect drug trafficker following the Vieux Fort homicide. Imagine a police officer talking like that—as if he were a criminal defense lawyer. In 1989, while a squad was preparing to raid a Chaussee Road address, a sergeant joined us. He had just been to church. “Man,” he said, “I received a call just before lunch. All I’ll say is that I will not be going with you on this raid. These fucking guys will get us killed.”
He said his lunchtime caller had told him he knew of the planned search of his premises and would be waiting for us with cake and juice. In plainer language, someone, whether or not a team member, had tipped off the suspect. Another time, after we successfully raided the home of the Baron of the South [Wally Richardson], he told arresting officers he knew in advance they were coming but did not believe the tip-off was genuine. He’d have placed more faith in what he was told, had it come from a particular source at the Vieux Fort police station.
I could go on with more proof of the police corruption about which Rick Wayne has written so many times over the last two years. I could tell you details about police pick-ups at Banannes Bay. I could tell you about the large sums of money collected during drug raids, half of which never made it to the police station. Most of the officers criminally involved in these matters got away, never mind the Hudson Phillips inquiry. I can tell you the prime minister knows the details. The worst part is that the culprits hold top positions on the force. The PM knows about that too. Ask yourself, dear reader, in a country small as ours, how is it possible for drug-traffickers to operate as freely as they do with next to no arrests?
The rot did not begin yesterday. I know precisely when the handcuffs were removed from Yamaha’s wrists. I know when he was shot “in self-defense.” [Editor’s note: Yamaha was a murder suspect in police custody. In the middle of the night he was taken from his cell in handcuffs by three police officers who later claimed Yamaha had volunteered to take them to the Vigie location where he had buried his victim’s body. Hours later his own corpse was fished out of the sea near the lighthouse, riddled with bullet holes. The three officers claimed they had shot him in self-defense, when his cuffs were off. A coroner’s court accepted their story. The remains of Yamaha’s alleged victim were later uncovered at a location miles from Vigie!]
The authorities know drugs arrive in Saint Lucia via the Castries post office. In 1988, there were law books at the police station with compressed marijuana between their pages. As I write, marijuana can still be found in those books. My former colleagues and I know about drugs that walked out of the exhibits room. A suitcase packed with marijuana flew out of the traffic department. The proceeds were deposited in a Vincentian bank. And then there was the confiscated dope-filled container that mysteriously vanished from a guarded customs shed. The perpetrators were well known but never arrested!
But all is not yet lost. We still have some honest police officers ready to pick up their cross and do whatever duty requires of them. But they need real help from the authorities. More emphasis must be placed on intercepting drugs at points of entry, where bags of contraband can be picked up and confiscated before contents are broken up for street sale. But what chance does a police officer have when a BMW can come in “fully loaded” and released after just one phone call to the right ear? Rick Wayne is doing a much-needed service to the country. He is demanding accountability of our public servants—especially those we elect to our highest offices. He is correct when he underscores the hypocrisy in referring to local drug traffickers as “businessmen.” There are several ways to skin a drug lord pretending to be a regular developer, a gas-station proprietor, the owner of a trucking company, a garment store manager. Remember Al Capone?
Finally, we have ample evidence that sentencing offenders to prison has no significant effect on the drug trade. For the barons, it’s business as usual. They contaminate the petty criminals they meet behind bars. Recently, an imprisoned drug baron took the opportunity to make up with his incarcerated rival. Now he serves as the baron’s “personal security.” As for the baron himself, he was recently released and now is bigger than ever. Close to untouchable, with employees normally seen in police uniform!
The preceding was first published in the STAR under a different heading in April 1990
