The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

For the greater part of fifty years, I have been privy to a set of judgemental remarks enunciated by people who have had the gall to levy these against, and toward our police officers, having done so, without the proof in many instances, when the sacrifices given the part of officers, these brilliant and valiant patriots were unmatched anywhere else in these Isles. You might ask the writer, what are you talking about?

Very glad that you’ve asked and here is the reasoning behind it...(before I attempt to go there I must point out that, except for civil matters in some cases, attorneys and lawyers, their assistants, staffers, etcetera, all of them have been able to find a livelihood, because of the workings of the officers of the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF).

Moving right along, what members of the Bahamian public have not been privy to the level, expanse and extent of the sacrifices that, especially police officers, have laid their health on the line, not wanting to talk yet about the life or death, but how officers reported to duty and during the course of the shifts, criminals were engaged in committing crimes in certain islands of the country.

These same officers were then told to return home and pack a bag for a one week’s journey...and what was promised one week oftentimes extended two weeks, camping out in the forests, a kind of Gorilla Warfare Wait See, near airstrips, or runway (the protection of the state). And as the intel suggested, police were able to nab the suspects and their load of whatever.

Now, while I think that it is unfair to compare the work of the Judiciary, their overall result, to that of our police force, because of the numbers differentials, I believe that the Judicial Branch of the Government must be mindful of the pivotal role that each plays, and how they must work together as kit-in-glove, my grandmother used to call it.

I also think that the membership of the courts ought never to point the finger at the efforts of the police, because based on what I know of how hard our officers have worked years past, we have the easily verifiable proof of it to back this up...and the police have had more success than the entire court system, I dare say....and as the former national security minister the Hon A Loftus Roker used to say, don’t press me, because I have more information, than you think I have.

But you know, had it not been for the members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, where might this country have been?

I had better supply the information: When I joined the Fire Service back in 1978, and how I was being favoured in that division moving from the actual firefighting for a time, to the fire investigation sector and finally in that division to the fire prevention area as a fire inspector.

Unaware that Father God had had His hands and was directing my life...I was sent to work in the Attorney Generals Section/Supreme Court side, and working under Police Inspector Mr Reginald Gaitor, this designation caused me to have to work with locating witnesses for courts, settings of cases, and inclusive of rounding up witnesses, even from the Family islands, access to the backlog files, and the constant debates being pursued, sued, and my Inspector was very concerned, he said with the shared number of Criminal files sitting gathering dust.

What do I mean? If my memory serves me right, there were in excess of 100,000 (one hundred thousand Criminal Case Files), just sitting there in the backlog.

For the sake of explanation for members of the public, who may not know what these represent? This represented how many Criminal case files that the police were able to complete, and as the chain of custody of those files goes, the over 100,000 plus criminal case files were handed over to the Judicial Branch of the Government, so that they should be able to continue the prosecution thereof, which was their mandate to do.

Editor, it is easy to say that the police were processing these detections, arrests, prosecutions, etcetera, more quickly than Courts were able to process.

And I get it that the crimes were happening with a greater clip than we have the proportionate courts, or justices were able to dispose off.

This was about 1995, or so and I suspect that that may be much more...not to mention the number of outstanding warrants, traffic files or cases all across the board, were problematic?

I can go on and on, but I rest.

FRANK GILBERT

Nassau,

January 15, 2024.