St. Maarten Private Eye

Sorry Hady, but I have seen it happen all too often and it's never the police at fault. Janchi always has some smooth answer about an internal investigation or such thing, but we never ever get to hear the results of them.

Hell, the Police even investigate themselves and, you guessed it, find themselves and their colleagues completely blameless without spot or wrinkle. Fancy putting Inspector Tony Rogers in charge of investigating police complaints. How can that be objective? Isn't that like putting a mouse in charge of the cheese?

It's an old story. Sorry to sound cynical but I have seen it happen time and time again, and it never seems to improve.

Take the disgusting response to the "Gay Bashing", What the hell were the press referring to it as a gay bashing for? It was plain and simple attempted murder and extremely violent assault on another human being. Sexual orientation had absolutely nothing to do with it. We already have laws for assault, and it does not matter what is their race, religion or sexual preference--they are all human beings and deserve to treated as such on an equal basis. that. But when the police found out they were investigating a "gay bashing", they stopped for a soda on the way, or something. And of course the detectives department didn't even follow it up till the next day.

While we have such badly trained and thoroughly compromised people employed in the Windward Islands Police, they will always need a thuggish, scary, sad, anally-retentive Janchi Leonard to constantly explain away all the problems in the police force and cover up for their buddies.

On a personal note. I was enjoying a Christmas Hennesy with a local store owner last night and the SRT or 0 Tolerance gang barged into his store (well that's what their T-shirts said, they never identified themselves). They rudely demanded he hand over his papers and business license. When he went to his office to get them, they followed him out there (I guess they thought he would run away on them). They had nothing to say to me, but their manners were disgusting, all of them. And they were really cold and mean faced. No smiles. I think these guys have been watching too many SWAT episodes. These kind of people should not be in contact with the public, nor should they have jobs until they are trained with some people skills. They did not even identify themselves, give their names or address the owner with any courtesy. After seeing the so called 0 Tolerance gang in action, I would say we don't need these kind of Commandos working the streets. Sure crime is rampant, but to terrorize businesses is no way to reduce crime.

I would say we are still in the Wild West...In fact old Wyatt Earp had more manners.

IN SXM anything goes. Warrants, who needs 'em. Just smash down the door and say they were resisting arrest, or plant some drugs in the house. Witnesses? Who would dare?

A case in point, I met the young former French police officer who was beaten mercilessly in front of 50 witnesses when he was just trying to get the money back from a work agency that was ripping them off. Rather than refund the money, the business owner called the police and they turned up promptly, took the ex-cop outside and told him they thought all Frenchmen were gay. He told me about all the witnesses outside, but not one of them would testify against the police for brutality. They stood there and watched him rammed into the hood of his own car. btw the man they assaulted to me appeared to be highly intelligent, a gentle and quiet spoken local French St. Martiner, who now lives on the Dutch side and is a musician and composer. The newspapers reported he was cursing the police. I spoke to him for over an hour and not once did I hear him raise his voice or use a foul word. He told his story to the papers and still the police got away with it--no inquiry, no findings. Usual story.

Frankly Hady, I agree, Leonard does look pretty scary...

We should demand a Police Ombudsman who is completely independent and has teeth to mete out punishment to offending police officers. Also a Police Integrity Commission, also independently run and with powers to refer them to judiciary.

Poke me, am I still dreaming...

SXMObserver