First Published: 24th of May, 2022. Region 6, Guyana, South America. GSA News
Last updated: December 17, 2022 at 21:22 pm
Police have a difficult task: contending with bandits, murderers, thieves, and lawbreakers and troublemakers in general. Consequently, they are trained to be tough, to handle offensive weapons, and to survive under dangerous circumstances. In light of this, the general civilian population whom the police are paid to protect and serve must offer a high level of cooperation to the police. If the police are completely stripped of the respect which the uniform should naturally carry, then there will be an inevitable breakdown of law and order in the country.
On the flip side of the coin, there are those corrupt officers who give all police a bad name: those who demand bribe, use their office as cover to harm innocent people, and exercise unnecessary violence against civilians. These kinds of behavior, which deteriorate respect for the police force, must be condemned, reported, and punished forthwith.
Over the past several months, there has been an alarming number of cases where civilians launched aggressive, sometimes unprovoked attacks against police officers. Some of these were caught on camera, but chances are, many more might have happened unknown to the general public.
The case of the police officer engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a civilian in New Amsterdam in the month of May, 2022 is an example in which the police officer reacted naturally in defending himself and was well within his limits. The video also shows that the officer exercised great restraint after subduing his opponent since we all know that under such circumstances, it is difficult to contain oneself.
An alert citizen on the other side of the road, foreseeing what was likely go down, quickly grabbed his or her mobile device and recorded the incident. From this video, which went viral on social media today, 24th of May, 2022, it is clear to see that the civilian provoked such a response from the police officer by attacking him first. But have you ever wondered what might have happened if it were for the proliferation of mobile recording devices? Perhaps the officer in question might have been accused and even charged with assault against an unarmed civilian.
Of course, we don’t know what happened before the recording started, but from the looks of things, the civilian might have been resisting arrest.
Team Guyana, South America strongly advises all citizens to offer maximum cooperation to law-enforcement officers at all time so as to maintain law and order in the country, and to report all incidents of abuses whenever they occur using the right channel and prescribed modus operandi.
