BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - AGAINST the backdrop of the recent police-related shooting that took place in McKnight earlier this week, Parliamentary Representative for the area Hon. Marcella Liburd is making an appeal for the powers that be to put measures in place for an independent body to be established to investigate alleged police infractions.
Speaking yesterday (Nov. 4) on Freedom FM 106.5’s ‘Issues’ programme, Liburd said the McKnight community was “incensed” about the incident which resulted in two individuals being shot.
The incident took place near a party at which children were in attendance and, according to police, it occurred in the police’s bid to apprehend a man whom they said was carrying an illegal firearm.
“As the Parliamentary Representative for the area, I want to say that the people of McKnight are very incensed over what took place on Sunday for the police to move in as they did, and for the Prime Minister to think he could justify what happened by saying they were trying to arrest someone on a murder charge. That is no way to justify what happened.
“Police must do their work and I want to say here that we are not against the police. We believe that majority of the police in the force are good people but, at the same time, justice must be done.”
The Hon. Liburd suggested that as far as she is aware, the incident was not “investigated”.
“There is a party going on for young children. You have people around and to just go and shoot in that environment is not something that we would want to see. And so again, as the Parliamentary Representative, I would like to see that matter investigated. But I am wondering about it because I’ve been told that as far as I am aware up to now no investigation has gone on of this particular shooting.
“Normally, when you have a shooting police would come on the scene and carry out some form of investigation, but I understand that that has not been done in this particular case…”
SKNVibes made a number of calls to both Acting Commissioner of Police Stafford Liburd and Assistant Commissioner of Police with responsibility for Crime Ian Queely concerning Liburd’s comments, but the attempts were unsuccessful.
In October 2014, the Police Complaints Act was passed and gazetted the following month. The legislation provides for the establishment of a unit within the Police Force which would be charged with investigating police officers whenever complaints of infractions would have been made.
In late October of this year, following an incident where a teenager was shot and killed by a police, Leader of the Opposition and immediate-past Prime Minister Dr. the Rt. Hon. Denzil Douglas said in a press release that the legislation had not yet come into effect, as a commencement date needed to be given by the Prime Minister and Minister of National Security.
He made a call then for that to be done and it was reiterated yesterday by Liburd.
“…that is why I am calling again, for the umpteenth time, for the Prime Minister to give a commencement date to the Police Complaints Act. It’s already passed and gazetted nearly a year now. All he has to do is put a commencement date to it, because that Act provides the mechanism to set up an independent body to investigate police actions.
“…We already have shootings in Nevis that were not handled properly with respect to the investigation process, and it seems as though this is just a pattern…”
