The Commissioner’s ‘New Play book’

Obviously incensed by the brazenness of the latest shooting at China Town which compounds SVG’ murder count Commissioner of Police Enville Williams, has sprung to new life. At least, so it seems; jolted of course by gunshots a stone’s throw across the street from Police Headquarters, with a toll of three men left dead.

He issued a stern sounding PR statement in which he warned unknown contributors to the spate of murders which has continued to tarnish the image of our otherwise beautiful nation that “the old Play book” has changed. He spoke tough. He sounded very determined. But that is what we expect of a Commissioner of Police.

All good, except that the issue of a change of play book can ring sort of hollow. Commissioner Williams has been in office since he replaced former Commissioner Colin John to whom he was deputy, in 2023. One may therefore ask what play book was the not quite so new COP using until now?

The murder count, as one calypsonian prefers to call it, has marched on unabated month after month, year after year, and appears only to be getting worse. We the members of the public sadly, seem to have come to accept the state of play with resignation alongside an increasing unease. We lament the loss of young lives, do not see the bulk of the murders being solved, and we carry on until the next one is reported in the media where, quite unfortunately, it is so often shared like entertainment.

We have seen where the issue of crime has been used as a political football by the two political parties jostling for the ears of voters. The Unity Labour Party, prior to its election to office in 2001 promised to be “tough on crime and the causes of crime”. They blamed the frequent killings on the then ruling New Democratic Party.

Then the ULP assumed the reigns of government and over a quarter century could not get a handle on this scourge. And, the then opposition NDP criticized the inability of the administration in power to get a grasp on the spate of murders. The ‘Yellow Code’ was going to put a stop to this trend; even placing a billboard prominently in public view enumerating the count and pointing fingers of blame.

And at times even our media houses have thrown about the numbers as though keeping tally. We compare the numbers year on year, and we the public helplessly look to our Police Force for some measure of relief and resolution. And they, in turn seek our help to provide information for possible breakthrough. But it does seem that the long arm of the law is curtailed by factors never clearly defined. Were those factors which hampered resolution of the trend of murders and especially gun crimes contained in the “old play book”?

If we consider that Commissioner Williams was asked to continue in office following the 14-1 trouncing of the Gonsalves led ULP, and is only now pulling down a new play book, is this implying that he had been hampered by the former prime minister who also held the portfolio as Minister of National Security?

But, for all of seven months now, we have had a new Minister of National Security in the saddle. The murders have continued, unabated, embarrassingly so one would presume, for the energetic Major Leacock who made it clear pre-elections that he expected to take on the portfolio of National Security.

It is safe to say that our nation is in support of all lawful efforts by the Police to arrest this trend of killings, most of it by use of illegal firearms.

We hope that efforts by the new Minister of National Security to retool the police would reap much success; we are all tired of hearing, seeing and reading about young men whose lives are being cut short through gun violence, even as we acknowledge the challenges with which our law enforcement is faced; and state categorically that our spiralling crime rate is a problem for all of us.

So, with a new or revised play book in hand, we can only hope that the renewed efforts to get a handle on this senseless spate of gun violence is met with great success. God knows that our nation needs it.