NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe. Photo: Dante Carrer
By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS
Tribune Staff Reporter
lmunnings@tribunemedia.net
NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe rebuffed assertions that he shifted his tone on the ability of police to investigate themselves when he became a Cabinet minister.
The Nassau Guardian noted yesterday that in 2020, before he was elected to office, Mr Munroe said it was time the country moved toward having independent investigations of police-involved killings.
“It cannot be proper that the body who is investigating this homicide decide whether it is justifiable or not,” he said after police killed three men in June 2020.
After the explosive implications of voice notes purporting to capture a quid-pro-quo arrangement involving a senior police officer and a gang leader, Mr Munroe expressed full support for the police’s ability to investigate the matter despite the public’s wariness of this.
The Security and Intelligence Branch is investigating the matter, and the Police Complaints Inspectorate will oversee the branch, according to Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander.
Yesterday, Mr Munroe suggested his tone is different because he can now implement the changes he wants.
“I have addressed it for six years when I was president of the Bar, and when I came in the chair here, I have the benefit of not talking about it, but doing something about it, and that is the difference of talk,” he said during a press conference yesterday.
“When you don’t have the authority to address something, you complain to the decision-makers. When you have the ability to address it, you cannot complain anymore, you have to address it and that is what we have been doing.
He said he has always had faith in the police force.
“If you take a view of the performance of the Royal Bahamas Police Force over the decade, they have consistently, when they have found their members falling short, charged them before the court,” he said. “We have policemen right now charged before the courts for homicides, so that gives me faith that it is an institution that is committed to rooting out the bad apples.”
Mr Munroe has said the Police Complaints Inspectorate now has administrative support. He noted that a bill is in the works to establish a more robust body to oversee investigations into all security forces.
Nonetheless, the Inspectorate has no investigators and little is known about what it has done to fulfil its legislative function of supervising the Complaints and Corruption Branch of the force. The body only has five members.
Mr Munroe could not say whether the Metropolitan Police of the United Kingdom has accepted a request to help investigate matters related to the voice notes.
Comments
Sickened 1 month, 2 weeks ago
LOL. Wayne gone down the political road and has lost all credibility. One can only laugh at him now.
Apostle 1 month, 2 weeks ago
This all shows the hypocrisy of politics and politicians. Wen in opposition, politicians make silly statements and promises that they themselves do not believe.
This is what happens when we politicize crime in an effort to make the current government look bad so that we turn the population against the government and give the opposition a better chance to win the government. but when the opposition becomes the government they don’t want people to talk about crime and its impact because the shoes is now on the other feet.
Crime is not a police problem but a societal problem. How we culture our people to either tolerate criminal behaviour or not determines our level of tolerance of deviance. The community and civil leaders, churches and all community leaders and parents must take responsibility for this carnage and politicians need to stop playing this blame game for cheap political mileage.
So Munroe, just like the now prime minister, changes his stance on crime. Remember a few years ago at Potter’s cay when the police moved the vendors from under the bridge, the prime minister and chairman Mitchell had big press conference condemning the then government and the police. But now they are the government, why don’t they allow the vendors back and allow the lawlessness of people parking under the bridge. They fooled the people into believing they supported them and now that we have voted them into government, they play deaf, blind and dumb.
I thought they told the Bahamian people that this crime will stop when they take office, but instead it has gotten worse. Politics, politicians and hypocrisy.
Meanwhile the lawlessness continues and our men and now women are dying almost daily. We are just barely past the halfway point of the year and at 69 murders. God help us because we are well on our way to recording 125 murders this year.
We can play all we want. During the previous FNM government, the police recorded 365 murders. For a government, which said it has the solution to crime, the current PLP government only merely pass the halfway mark and the police have already recorded 367. Gold help us.
TalRussell 1 month, 2 weeks ago
With unfavorable opinions mountin' as to -- How long will the inactive KC Defense Lawyer with an obligation to defend even the worst -- Planning on stickin' to the Ministerial Docket -- Yes?
rosiepi 1 month, 2 weeks ago
Using satire again Munroe??!
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