The Tribune

By RUPERT MISSICK Jr

If you follow court cases, particularly at the arraignment stage, accusations of police brutality are so commonplace they are received by the court with the unimpressed deference of a nurse on a busy maternity ward recording the weight of newborn infants.

The complaints range anywhere from being “fish bagged”, hit with a baseball bat through a phone book, to the tazering of private parts.

Sometimes the validity of the claims are obvious or else believable. You are able to see the marks on the prisoner’s extremities or sometimes they’re bleeding a little from the head. Other times there is nothing to see.

Certainly the accusations against the police by persons “known to them” should be eyed with some scepticism but so should our nation’s high arrest and comparatively not-so-impressive conviction rate.

Police brutality in the Bahamas rests in that unsettling gray area where its tolerated as long as it “gets the bad guy off the street” but decried only when it hits close to home and a son, brother, or father becomes a victim.

This brutality, according to attorney Christina Galanos, creates an “extreme” break down in trust. She says that the system actually fuels that breakdown.

In her four short years as an attorney, she has represented approximately 50 individuals who claimed to be a victim of police brutality and has on several occasions visited police stations or Her Majesty’s Prison and seen the signs of this brutality.

Most often than not, this alleged brutality is suffered by persons who live below the middle-class and the protection of polite social concerns.

These are people without money, without social standing, without legal representation and lack a rudimentary knowledge of what their rights are as a citizen of the Bahamas.

“As a country, we are not doing enough to educate our citizens about their rights and what should happen upon arrest. I think that is where we first need to start. I have had clients make complaints to the Complaints Unit and very rarely is there a follow-up or a call.

“What happens a lot of times is you have to take out a civil suit against the police and sue them for keeping you longer than they should or sue them for assault and battery. The problem is the people who the police do these things to can hardly afford an attorney to represent them on their criminal matter much less can they afford an attorney for a civil case. Civil cases are like a luxury. Its not something the average citizen can afford,” Ms Galanos said.

It is hard to deny that the system leaves victims of police abuse, more often than not, dissatisfied that justice has been done.

All deaths while in police custody have to be forwarded to the Corner’s Court. However, the Corner’s Court does not determine civil or criminal liability and even if a jury was to find that there was some wrong doing by the police, there is no guarantee that those police officers will be prosecuted.

The only quick and effective mechanism would be a private prosecution, the expense of which, for many, can prove prohibitive.

Ms Galanos said that from what she has seen, the system does not offer adequate protection to those people who suffer in custody through some wrongdoing by police officers.

Last year, 240 complaints were filed against the police. The most frequent complaint by accusers was assault, accounting for 53 per cent of the total complaints. Other allegations ranged from unlawful arrest to threats of death.

However, up until the time these numbers were released in January of this year, only 36 per cent of these cases were closed. Police statistics indicate that 30 were withdrawn by the complainant, 19 were recommended to the Tribunal, 15 were determined “unfounded”, eight were “concluded for insufficient evidence”, and six were found to be “unsubstantiated”.

Five of the cases were “informally resolved” while four were concluded through warnings.

“What you have now is a public that really does not have any confidence in the police and their opinion, quite frankly, is that police officers are crooked and there is nobody to reign them back in if they do something.

“There is really no one there to forcefully prosecute them as would the normal citizen, who is not a police officer, would be prosecuted in those same circumstances. I think until we get that together, a lot of people will continue to not have respect for police officers.

“When you have a society that does not respect the police you can’t begin to combat crime. If the public would see those bad apples brought to justice swiftly and in a similar manner that other persons are brought to justice, I think slowly but surely this would be a step in the right direction, to build the public confidence in the RBPF,” Ms Galanos said.

While she said that there are many police officers who do a good job, those for whom police brutality does not come into play, Ms Galanos said that in her opinion the RBPF is nowhere near where it should be.

“You can’t solve a case the way you see fit. There are certain legal parameters that you must stay within. You can’t beat a confession out of a guy and hope that it will hold up in court. It won’t.

“Essentially, when you beat him and there is no other evidence to support that he committed a crime, and he has bruises to show that you beat him, the law is clear.

“Where the police cannot provide a reasonable explanation to the court as to how those bruises came about, the court is to disregard the confession. When the confession goes and you have no evidence, he walks. You may have solved that crime as far as your office is concerned or as far as the RBPF is concerned, but essentially he is going home next month,” Ms Galanos said.

But it’s hard to deny that in a country where many citizens feel beset by crime, the patience of the public is not on the side of those who criticise the rough handling or violation of the rights of suspected criminals by police, or those who like Ms Galanos, are determined to fight for those who have been denied these rights.

However, Ms Galanos says that ensuring the state treats everyone humanely and fairly is vital for a proper and ordered society.

“For me, it is amazing in this country how people hold one opinion but when it happens to ‘their good son’ attitudes change. I am not so interested in the opinion of people who never experienced what it is like to have their son brutalised by the police.

“I don’t care what they have to say because what they say to me if it hasn’t happened to them will inevitably be different from what they would say to me if it has happened to them. That’s how I know that this mentality is wrong. Because when it hits home, there is a 180,” she said.

• For more on the McCabe Project, and in-depth look into the causes behind crime in the Bahamas, visit www.facebook.com/mccabeproject, or www.mccabeproject.com.