The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Remarkable how modern technology (specifically cell phone cameras and recording devices) can be used to bring about the starkest changes in behaviour among some public officials in The Bahamas.

Last year, while attempting to make a complaint about the behaviour of a public official at the police station in Mathew Town, Inagua, I was confronted with an ignorant and abusive member of the Royal Bahamas Police Force who not only refused to take my complaint, but threatened me with arrest for “disorderly conduct” if I did not leave the station.

Of course, my conduct was neither disorderly nor otherwise unlawful. But this did not matter. Anyone with any experience of our local police force knows that this charge is used as a catch-all instrument of abuse anytime a member of the organisation feels like intimidating a member of the public.

When I returned to the station five minutes later armed with my activated and recording cell phone and asked him to repeat his statement, the officer literally ducked for cover behind the high desk, before emerging to inquire, in the meekest tone, if I had a complaint I would like to make.

That experience came to mind when I witnessed the Commissioner of Police and Minister of National Security both pretending to be shocked by the apparent abuses exposed by a member of the public who had the presence of mind to record his interactions with a senior member of the police force recently.

This is progress. But while the public stance of Minister and Commissioner was encouraging, nobody believes that this is the first credible instance of police abuse to come to their attention.

Rather, their reaction this time seems to have been different only because it was recorded and went viral. All too often, the first reaction of public officials up the ladder is to smooth things over by pretending (falsely) that such instances are a rare exception rather than a stubborn rule.

Until that changes, it would sadly behoove any member of the public to always have a concealed recording device handy when dealing with members of the police force.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

March 16, 2020.