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Posted: Friday 31 March, 2023 at 3:59 PM

Top Cop seeking to rebrand Police Force

By: Jermine Abel, SKNVibes.com

    …hopes to build Community Policing

     

    BASSERERE, St. Kitts - THE newly-appointed Commissioner of the Royal St. Kitts and Nevis Police Force (RSKNPF), James Sutton, is seeking to undertake the arduous task of creating an attitudinal change of some members of the Force with the aim of rebuilding Community Policing and public trust in the law enforcement agency.

     

    But there is some degree of skepticism when this idiom is taken into consideration: “You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.”

     

    Over the last several years, the RSCNPF has come in for harsh criticisms from members of the public and the media over the behaviour of some of its members, both in and out of uniform, and their general attitudes to the public at large.

     

    Charged with the mandate of Service and Protection, the Police Force has seen the behaviour of many of its officers making headline news locally and regionally, as well as on social media platforms, for all the wrong reasons. 

     

    In December, last, a trainee officer slammed a man, who might not have been mentally stabled at the time, to the ground after persons had called officers following him breaking a number of bottles in a public space.

     

    That was preceded by an officer standing on the back of a man in a hot concreted drain, whom they sought to arrest. While doing that, another officer stood by watching as they made threats to arrest the man and video recorded the incident.

     

    Also, some officers were charged with illegal firearm possession, throwing contraband over a wall of Her Majesty’s Prison and  a number of other criminal offences, which highlighted a growing trend within the rank and file of the largest law enforcement agency in the Federation that is mandated to uphold the law.

     

    Now, with the newly-appointed Top Cop in place and members of his High Command ready to work, he be looking at the behaviour of his officers and nothing will be swept under the proverbial carpet.

     

    “Police officers are not above! We have established a unit within the organization called the Professional Standards Department, which is tasked with investigating police officers who have been unprofessional to members of the community. And that is one of the areas that I in the lawtend to beef-up and have some enforcement in that area,” noted Sutton

     

    The Commissioner will have his hands filled in seeking to remedy the problem, as Hilroy Brandy, former Commissioner of Police, sought to stamp out the bad behaviour within the Police Force. 

     

    Just after the incident when the officer stood on the back of the man in the drain, Brandy had sought to toughen the Force’s stance to deal with rogue officers by telling SKNVibes that the officers would face the full extent of the law, but the issue continued into the December period. 

     

    “If we are promoting Community Policing and police officers are being unprofessional with members of the community, it defeats the whole purpose,” noted Sutton at a recently held press conference.

     

    At the time, when asked about the number of officers who were disciplined and/or removed from the Force, the Commissioner noted that he did not have the statistics at hand.

     

    He however noted that over the last year they did not have many cases disposed of regarding the conduct of officers, stopping short of explaining what exactly that means, adding that “I believe that that is an area that I will have to strengthen”.

     

    The Commissioner has promised, as part of the overall change, officers would undergo training in customer service training which would aid them in properly dealing with and engaging members of the public.

     

    But on the other hand, some members of the public have also not been respectful to the police when they are executing their duties; more specifically, when carrying out arrests. They have oftentimes sought to impede the arrest or hurl expletives and derogatory remarks at the officers.

     

    Building trust will be key for offices within the community, such as the soon to be launch of the Community Group, spanning Constituency Four, to ensure law and order continues in a tourism dependent nation.
     

     

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