GANGS?- let’s deal with reality
SO,WHAT OUR people have been long saying is being confirmed by the persons responsible for upholding law and order! Gangs are operating in our once- peaceful community with a wide scope of action which includes murder, drug running and other serious crimes.
So said the Senior Police officer responsible for the fight against crime, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Trevor Bailey as reported in last weekend’s issue of the SEARCHLIGHT. To back up his statement ACP Bailey said that there is evidence of the gang culture here including structures, names, assigned tasks to “soldiers”, including, frighteningly murders and gangs now claiming territory or turf.
Twice in the last few years Police have, perhaps naively one may say, announced gun amnesties with a view towards reducing illegal firearms on the streets, but these have clearly been ignored by the biggest perpetrators of violent crime. It is open defiance, illustrated by the recent increase in violent guns crime right after the closure of the amnesty period.
There seems to be a pattern of gun murders which do not fit any regular crime surge and seems to be targeted. In addition the daylight robberies of two credit union branches- the Teachers Credit Union, and the Government Employees Cooperative Credit Union, on opposite sides of the island, the arrest of one young woman among the alleged robbers, and, unrelated but nevertheless disconcerting, the killing of a secondary school student in “Pole Yard”, have raised further alarms in our country. ACP Bailey heightened these fears by confirming that the gangs are targeting school students.
He warned us about hiding our heads in the sand.
Sound advice. Over the years we have indulged in the media glorification of deadly crime. Countless movies took this line, starting with the US Westerns and the massacre of the indigenous people, as well as the robberies, murder and rape perpetrated by the western heroes. We wallowed in the dangerous cinema filth.
Then came Trinidad with the “bad john” culture and the gangs of Boysie Singh and company.
Generations of young men grew up wanting to become like Al Capone, not Marcus Garvey; like Boysie Singh, not honest Police officers. There is a calypso in Trinidad which laments how gang leaders are glorified locally, given preferential treatment, have access to the best lawyers and hob nob with the “high and mighty” of our societies. But rather than face the facts, we deliberately politicize the issue. Trinidad has had numerous changes of government since the days of Eric Wiliams, but deadly crime has burgeoned. In addition, it is now a global and regional phenomenon. The gangs are not just local but regional and international in character and thus harder to handle. Time to wake up and smell the coffee before we all get drowned in the brew. There is no ready-made solution, but first there must be the common recognition that this is a serious challenge, not just for the Police but for us all. Each little bit helps, whether it is pan against crime or our personal decisions to stay away from enjoying the fruits of crime. It is widely accepted that “money is the root of all evil”. Biblical truth be told it is not money which is the root, but the love of money, of accumulating it by all means, fair and foul, and the false preaching that “money run things” from which all these evils emanate.
Are we prepared to face the realities?
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