No place for corrupt, rogue cops in Police Force – Ramnarine

In light of a recent report from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which highlights that the Guyana Police Force is the least trusted institution in the country, acting Commissioner of Police David Ramnarine has stated that efforts are being undertaken to strengthen relations with the public.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Ramnarine was pellucid that he will not tolerate unprofessional behaviour by ranks that could tarnish the reputation of the Police Force, especially since significant effort has been put in place to rebuild public trust.

While there has been much work done under the Force’s ‘Social Crime Prevention’ programme to further strengthen the Police-community relations, the acting Police Commissioner sought to emphasise on efforts taken within the Force to build public trust.
He explained that the Force’s lower-order comprises mainly of young persons who lack some of the basic skills that are needed to promote a professional and trust-worthy institution.
“A large percentage of the Force at a lower level consists of young members of the Force lacking much needed experience, patience, tolerance and we are working on them. There has to be constant supervision; you got to be driving in their heads all the time that they have taken an oath to serve… and that their conduct and the discharge of those responsibilities is always under focus,” he stated.
According to the acting Commissioner, in the past, the Force would cover up and even tolerate delinquent behaviour from ranks because it needed the staff, but this has changed and the junior ranks have been cautioned that this will no longer be obtained.
“Gone are the days when you tolerate a deviant rank, whether criminally or departmentally, because you can’t help it; you don’t have persons joining the Force and so you are hesitant to let that person go and try to cover up or have a soft-touch with the deviant behaviour, but now we have a line out there,” he declared.
Moreover, the acting Police Commissioner highlighted that not only is the Force receiving more recruitment applications, but are receiving applications from persons who are highly qualified, such as post graduates who want to be enlisted in the Police Force.
In fact, he disclosed that only a couple of days ago, someone with a Degree in Economics had expressed interest in joining the Force, while there continues to be applications from diploma and degree holders. This, he noted, is quite distinct, given the fact that about 10 years ago, people were joining the Force with basically primary and secondary education.
Ramnarine further pointed out that with a long line of potential recruits on the waiting list, “we are not going to hesitate to make the decision that when you join, you take the training and then you graduate and believe you become a god onto yourself – you have a uniform, you have a gun, you have accomplices with you and you are going to terrorise and do foolishness to besmirch the image of the Force – not understanding that the image of the country is at stake by your actions, not only the Police Force and yourself, so we will have to let you go, we are not going to keep you.”
On this note, Ramnarine went on to outline that actions are constantly being taken against those corrupt and rogue officers.
In fact, he noted that only recently he was forced to take “condign and swift” actions against two ranks from the Immigration Branch who were involved in an “ugly” incident at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA).
“We can’t have that, we can’t tolerate that and we can’t be indecisive on taking actions,” he posited.
The acting Police Commissioner further disclosed that over the years, there have been doubts about whether the Police Force would be able to “investigate, charge and prosecute our own”. He responded to this revealing that 12 ranks were dismissed from the Force for various offences last year, while some 15 ranks were gotten rid of so far this year.