The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Last week, a ZNS reporter interviewed a shanty town resident who said, “They don’t want start something they can’t finish”. The resident, named Anson Aly was referring to Bahamians who apparently are finally doing their jobs and removing illegal shanty towns.

A twist to this story appeared on social media and it was revealed that Aly also said that he was ready to put the Colombian necktie on persons not acting consistent with the way he wanted them to act.

The Colombian necktie according to Wikipedia “is a method of murder wherein the victim’s throat is slashed horizontally, with a knife or other sharp object”.

This caused a social media firestorm, which prompted Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Fred Mitchell to make a public statement on the matter. Even the Haitian Embassy commented on the matter.

It is also reported that Aly turned himself in at the Cable Beach Police Station where he spent several days being questioned by police. And this brings me to the crux of my story.

Aly was released without being charged and he issued an apology to the public, which in my view was rehearsed but it still had the air of sincerity. Commenting on Aly’s release, Commissioner of Police (COP) Ellison Greenslade said, “Mr. Aly was released after consultation with the Attorney General’s Office and it was found that he had not committed any offences”. If you carefully analyze Greenslade’s guarded statement, it is obvious that he is trying to say something else and it hints to the fact that he is not in control of policing the nation. He never used the words we found but rather it was found.

Additionally, the Bahamian people need to know who found that Aly had not committed any offences. We also want to know Greenslade’s position on this matter as a highly trained police officer. The last time I checked, threats were still against the law.

This is very concerning to the Bahamian public at large, who feel that once again, our commissioner does not have the will to enforce the law.

The more and more Greenslade speaks, the more he sounds like a politician. He needs to execute his job duty and if he can’t do it for whatever reason, then he needs to resign. He was appointed as the sixth commissioner of police on January 4, 2010 and he was supposed to curb the crime problem. In every year since he has been commissioner, we have averaged more than 100 murders. The Bahamian people have been very patient with the commissioner during several botched responses to national incidents, but I think this time he has gone too far.

He takes the brunt of criticism on national issues because he is always willing and ready to run to the public with statements that don’t serve the public good. It appears as if some of his decisions are politically motivated. No statement has been made by the Attorney General or the Minister of National Security on this matter, but it appears that they have more control of the police force than Commissioner Greenslade.

I know of several police officers, who, even though they are trained to abide by the command’s decision, are not happy with this particular outcome. Greenslade’s actions suggest that his focus is to appease his bosses and this has caused him to fall out of favour with the Bahamian public and reduce the morale in the police force.

Bahamians for the most part are not at the least surprised when politicians are deceptive in their language and their actions, but this is new territory for the COP. We need a commissioner who will call it only as he sees it.

The jury is out on Greenslade. The Bahamian people will look at this latest decision as an addition to a long line of questionable actions on national issues that he has not handled properly. He needs to stand up and take full command of his post, even if it means rubbing shoulders with his superiors.

The country spent thousands of dollars training him and by God we expect him to put it to use, not to be a spokesman for the Minister of National Security or the Attorney General. We don’t want him to play politics, but we need his great police mind to effect the criminal justice process when the evidence exists.

DEHAVILLAND MOSS

Nassau,

October 23, 2014.