An ‘unbothered’ Top Cop Leslie James
The Country’s Commissioner of Police Leslie James has made it clear that he not too bothered about the crime situation as most of what is happening are ‘petty crimes’
James was at the time responding to questions posed by BIG Smith Crime Watch on his concerns given the many robberies which are taking place especially in and out of Georgetown.
The question posed to the Top Cop specifically reads; Commissioner there have been several robberies in and around the city as commissioner how bothered or un-bothered are you with what is going on and is being done to address it?
“I am not necessarily bothered because I am saying that there are a few sensational crimes that are occurring ok; but we noted there might have been a spike but I am saying that in terms of serious crimes at the moment, we have a minus 3.4 percent in serious crimes generally”
The Commissioner’s statement does suggest that the Guyana Police Force treats lightly lightly with the issue of so called petty crimes which ultimately propels the perpetrators to graduate to the more serious crimes once their ‘petty crimes’ either go undetected, reported or addressed.
It was put to the commissioner of police that while the petty crimes might not be much of a bother to him, it is those same small pockets of crimes here and there which affects the police stats negatively.
To this he responded “We have petty snatching of persons property, cell phones, purses handbags and things like that especially in the Stabroek area as you know the commander of Division 4’A’ was tasked along with the crime chief and some other senior officers to deal with that aspect.”
There have been several instances in the past where person would refuse to follow up on the issues of some things being taken from them by ‘petty bandits’ because they do not get the expected support from the police when visiting some stations.
There is at least one case where a Divisional Detective reportedly told a victim of an armed robbery not to call him back to inquire about his phone which was found on a suspect who was shot by the police.
“We have said in the past, crimes wherever they occur, we will deal with them, we have measures, we have strategies in place to deal with those crimes” Leslie James noted.
He said that the force is still unable to determine what propels persons to commit crimes as he pointed to the several social crime prevention programs which are being ran in the various divisions.
Those programs which were geared to help the police and community mesh in an effort for there to be information sharing and better intelligence gathering is however not as vibrant as they were a few years ago.
President David Granger two years ago urged the police force to get to the cause of why persons are committing crimes.
The Top Cop said the force has embarked on a number of tactics to deal with the scourge of crime but it remains simply clear that persons are still bent on getting involved in crime. Those crimes he has however stated, are being deal with decisively as the force continues to try its utmost. He added that most of the efforts are intelligence driven.
James said the CCTV cameras erected in and around Georgetown as part of the safe city project has been assisting the police with their efforts and that is also responsible for the many arrests after crimes have been committed.
Over the last few months, while there have been numerous cases of small robberies in and around Georgetown, there have also been a number of gun related crimes and incidents where persons are being shot and homes are being invaded, there have also been a number of robbery related murders of late.