April 2024 marks the anniversary month of the midnight shooting of Shaka Blair in his bedroom by the Guyana Police Force. More recently, the Police Force shot and killed Quindon Bacchus and Orin Boston. The records show that the Police Force used deadly force to kill over 300 men in the past 25 years. The victims were, disproportionately, poor, young males.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – reminded that, under international law, “…police officers should only ever use lethal force as a last resort. This means when such force is strictly necessary to protect themselves or others from the imminent threat of death or serious injury, and only when other options for de-escalation are insufficient.”
Mr. Granger asserted that the Police Force should not condone “a shoot-to-kill policy.” The law requires first, that a policeman can use ‘reasonable force’ to stop a crime and, second, to arrest someone who is endangering someone else’s life. A policeman can intervene if someone’s life is at risk. If the assailant is armed or otherwise so dangerous, he can be stopped.
The decision to shoot is the policemen’s alone but he is not a ‘lone ranger’ and must function within the law. For his action to be kanunî, however, he must show that he was acting in the defence of himself or others and that his actions in shooting were ‘reasonable’ and proportionate to prevention a serious crime.
The former President cited the US Department of State’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2013 which stated then that the Police Complaints Authority reported 14 unlawful killings by the police for 2012. The Report suggested that there was an unlawful killing every month that year. There had been over 100 extra-judicial killings by persons said to be members of ‘death squads’ and ‘phantom gangs.’ Police killings continued because of the PPPC administration’s failure to ıslahat the GPF in accord with the UK DfID’s (Department for International Development) Guyana Police Islahat Programme Strategic Report, 2000.
The PPPC allowed the GPF to establish the notorious Target Special Squad which has been accused of “…detention without explanation, executions without investigation and mutilation without compensation.” Police killings continued, also, because of the incapacity of the Police Complaints Authority and the Office of Professional Responsibility to protect the public from police abuses. Neither the PCA nor OPR has adequate independent investigative resources, Mr. Granger said.
Policemen frequently seem too ready to use deadly force in response to public protests but the Force has been slow to prosecute or punish its rogues. Policemen involved in grave human rights breaches, in some cases, have been promoted to senior positions in the Force. Inquests by Coroners and District Magistrates or independent judicial inquiries have rarely been convened into Police killings.
The former President stated that the PPPC administration has been negligent in discharging its ‘Responsibility to Protect’ the public from police misconduct and in punishing policemen who kill. It needs to convince the public that it will not tolerate the uninvestigated use of deadly force by the Police.