[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s mid-2018, some eight years after the phrase “extra-judicial killings” was first connected by the United States Department of Justice with police officers in Saint Lucia, and five years since IMPACS impacted our justice system, thanks to then prime minister Kenny Anthony. Travis Chicot, president of the Police Welfare Association, spoke with me this week about the effects of the unresolved issues surrounding the deaths in 2010-2011 of certain citizens “deemed to be criminals” at the hands of the police. He cited members of the force who in recent times have been brought in for questioning by fellow officers in relation to the fatal police shootings at the time of Operation Restore Confidence (ORC). The officers are being treated as murder suspects, said Chicot. “Whether you’re brought in by an attorney or are taken in with handcuffs, you know you’ve been arrested.”
Chicot said the effects on the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force have been “devastating”. He complained of wall-to-wall depression, “psychologically challenged” officers and families concerned about their future. Said Chicot: “Wives are panicking. Their kids are asking questions that they cannot answer, like: When will their fathers be arrested again? The children are reluctant to go to school where they face all kinds of questions by other students and even teachers.”
Meanwhile the suspect officers continue to do their work in various key departments and are being productive despite that some have complained about victimization. “How can you be required to do your best at work when you have no idea what your immediate future holds; when you know promotion is out of the question; when you don’t know if you’ll still have a job a month from now? These are men with regular family responsibilities. It’s been eight years since this whole thing started and still certain officers are under a cloud, with no idea what to expect. No one is telling them what’s going on.”
According to Chicot, certain police officers are restricted from taking leave or from seeking employment outside the force, all because of those “serious but unfounded allegations that no one seems in a hurry to resolve”.
Last week the Prime Minister, Mr. Allen Chastanet told reporters, “To say that it has been ongoing for all these years is unfair to my administration. This is something we inherited.”
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), whose year-old contract was renewed in October 2017, is fully responsible for the investigations concerning IMPACS, according to the prime minister.
Chicot insists the officers he represents need to be told something other than “it’s in the hands of the DPP”. He says that after eight years, the DPP’s office should have something useful to say to the affected officers. “By now something should have been articulated to our members: whether or not they are going to be charged with a crime. Police also have rights under our constitution. We are ready to face the courts if need be.”
Last November in an interview, the Home Affairs Minister Hermangild Francis—himself a former police officer—like the PM, expressed confidence in the DPP’s office insofar as the IMPACS investigation is concerned. However, he went a step further. “I have never second-guessed the police,” he said. “I am still of the opinion that most of what happened can be justified.”
Concerning related restrictions on Saint Lucia under the Leahy Law, Chicot said: “If we want to please particular countries, we need to say the truth. There was nothing ad hoc about Operation Restore Confidence, as some who know better have claimed. The police were carrying out their duties; they were not, to the best of my knowledge, operating as some kind of gang. They didn’t just decide to arrest and shoot people. ORC was a police operation.”
Chicot insists it’s high time the authorities made a statement about the way forward. He noted, too, that the only officers being interrogated are “from the lower end”. Meanwhile, the former prime minister who initiated the IMPACS investigations had said in a televised speech that not only were police officers involved, but “also businessmen and politicians”.
Chicot is nevertheless being careful. He said: “We want to tread cautiously because we don’t want it to appear like we’re interfering with the proceedings of judicial matters. But soon you will see movement. The Constitution says that charges against citizens should be heard within reasonable time and I think eight years is more than reasonable. All we have are a bunch of shocking allegations by a prime minister supposedly reading from a report that should properly have been in the hands of the DPP, not a politician. How much longer will IMPACS be held over the heads of certain police officers? Another eight years? Justice delayed is justice denied.”
