Ex police says some officers don’t know the law

The views in this opinion piece are solely those of the writer and not of One News SVG.

Dear Editor,

I read an article recently on your side – One News SVG, which gave what I would describe as a one-sided account of an alledged exchange between a resident of Park Hill and five police officers who he said went to arrest him.

I say one-sided to mean that I did not get the side of the story from the police.

In fairness to you, you did indicate that you tried to reach them three times to no avail.

Notwithstanding all of that and whether or not the story is true, one thing is for sure: some police officers do not know the law.

What is even worse about the alleged case of Mr. King is that he is a prison officer (as far as I know), and the police should have known better than to come to him with nonsense. This goes for everyone by the way.

Mr. King’s alleged incident is not the first one that surfaced, where police officers came totally unprepared or, I would go further to say ill-informed, in response to complaints or reports made to them.

While there are very knowledgeable and professional police officers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the truth is that too many of these faux pas occur by some officers, especially younger ones and embarrass the force.

Police need more training, especially the junior ones.

As far as I can remember, a booklet was provided to police officers in 2014 which summarized offenses and points to prove.

I remember clearly that at that time, one of the reasons given for the creation of the booklet was that legs of many offenses were improperly established for many cases that were going before the court.

That led to cases being dismissed because inept police officers missed out basic steps along the way, and in some cases, charges were not properly filed.

One of the most important features of the booklet, which members of the public should be able to obtain at the government printry, is that it contains guides such as powers of arrest.

I wonder if they still read it.

I will reserve the remainder of my comment on this issue for another time.

Retired police officer