Strange security message
Published:Saturday | May 22, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Editor, Sir:
I am finding it difficult to understand the message that the persons in charge of the security of this country are trying to convey to us. On the one hand, the minister of national security is telling us that the security forces are well equipped and able to deal with the present situation in West Kingston, and we should keep calm because there is nothing to fear.
On the other hand, information is being released, by the police, to suggest that among the weaponry in Tivoli Gardens is the 50-calibre Grizzly Big Boar rifle.
How can the minister tell persons to be calm, and ask for information about criminal activity when we see nothing being done about roads that are blocked, and the police claim to know that Big Boars are there? Isn't blocking public roads against the law? Aren't Big Boars, without permits, against the law?
don't tell us to be calm
I understand that the police may be strategising as to how to deal with the roadblocks, and other elements of the operation, but don't tell us to be calm, and you definitely do not have things under control. If you feel you must tell us something, tell us that you are working on a plan to get things under control.
The kind of information that we are getting from the heads of security is adding to the mistrust that many persons have for the security forces. Persons, for example, are going to be sceptical about what the police are saying when they, the police, have to go on the Internet to get pictures of the kind of weaponry they claim are in a particular community. It is one thing when we have to question the accounts of shoot-outs by police on the ground, but quite another when the information given by the upper ranks seems to lack credibility, and sometimes even logic.
Information, and how it us used, can build or destroy credibility. The security minister, and high-ranking members of the force, if they want citizens to feel safe, and thus, stay calm, should talk less and do more.
I am, etc.
GARY GARDINER (Rev)
Kingston 3