The Tribune

WE are in a very strange situation in this country right now.

Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander has welcomed the decision of a man who begged a judge last week to send him back to prison for his own safety.

The man is Anthon Munroe. He is accused of the murder in September 2020 of Shermalle Ferguson, Jr – and has been on bail for more than a year. That bail was set at $30,000.

Last week, he says someone shot at him outside his home – and off he went to ask a judge to send him back behind bars, saying it would be safer for him and his family.

The Commissioner, speaking yesterday, said: “He is now afraid and went back to the court and said, judge, please remand me, I don’t want my bail, cancel my bail, and other individuals should do just that. Say, I don’t want no bail. I want to live a little longer. Revoke my bail and put me back behind bars. And he did the right thing, and we want to encourage others to do just that because we see the trend, and we have to fix it.”

Let us recap a little here.

Mr Munroe is charged with murder. He may be guilty. He may not be guilty. That is for the court to decide when his case is eventually heard.

Therefore, the Commissioner is welcoming a person who is not at present guilty of this crime begging to be locked up for his own safety and that of his family.

That is essentially admitting that the police cannot keep the streets safe. Now that may be true – but it is hardly something for the chief of the police force to be encouraging people to go hide behind bars because that is the only way to stay alive.

Indeed, the Commissioner is encouraging others to do the same. It is as if he is throwing up his hands and saying well, we can’t keep you alive out there, so you’d best go to prison.

The problem that continues to lie at the heart of this issue is how long it takes such cases to be heard in court. Look again at the date of the killing of Shermalle Ferguson, Jr. It was back in 2020. More than three years ago. How long exactly is someone accused of a crime supposed to sit in a cell waiting for a space in court for their case to be heard? It is more than three years on now – should Munroe go back to jail for another year? Another two years? Three? More? What if that person is found innocent after all that time? How much time will an innocent person have lost inside the walls of Fox Hill prison?

That was one of the points raised by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in their report on issues in The Bahamas. The group highlighted the number of people killed on bail and called on the government to improve its ability to keep them – and, frankly, all people – safe.

However, Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe has rebuffed the findings of the working group, which included issues of forced confessions, police brutality and unlawful detainment.

He cast doubt on information having come from people who were detained or allegedly abused, saying, “When you decide whose account to believe, I just want you to take into account that the prisoner, the criminal, would always like you to silence your watchdog”.

The UN is an independent body – it has no reason to favour law enforcement or criminal – so when Mr Munroe urged Bahamians to trust law enforcement and not the “adverse” report findings, one has to question why he would not consider the findings in order to improve the systems we have in place.

We know people out on bail are being shot dead – the UN group simply suggests improving what we are doing to keep people safe.

We know there are issues with police officers who overstep the law – because we have seen findings of unlawful killing in shootings, we have seen cases of officers being disciplined for striking people, we have heard cases of claims even of torture.

We know there have been cases of unlawful detainment – which have sometimes led to sizeable court settlements.

To pretend these things do not exist is to stick one’s head in the sand, the only result of which is to show the world your posterior.

We undoubtedly have issues that need to be resolved – but citing it as a good thing that the police are unable to protect people not yet guilty of a crime is a very unusual stance to take.