Dear Editor,
\nThe record-breaking use of expletives by Attorney-at-Law Ryan Crawford should not be the main focus on the incident which took place on the ECD Public Road, and so detract from the casus belli which provoked the outburst.
\nIt is interesting to read of a similar incident which is related by another Attorney-at-Law and a sitting Member of Parliament, Mr Charrandass Persaud. In a letter to the media, he said, \u201cOn Friday, August 24, 2018, about 8.50pm, I was stopped at Vigilance at a \u201croadblock\u201d. No \u2018goodnight\u2019, no \u2018please\u2019 was offered to me. I was told to produce my driver\u2019s licence. I must let the public know this because it is our right. A policeman must tell you why he has stopped you. I asked the rank why he stopped me and he simply said he wanted to see my driver\u2019s licence. I refused to give it to him.\u201d
\nHe was taken to the Vigilance, where he was released after it was ascertained that he was an MP.
\nHowever, when one views the video taken by the policeman, it should be noted that the videoing began as Crawford\u2019s car was approaching. This would seem to suggest an act of premeditation. There is a clear intent to make a post on Facebook should the outcome of the stop escalate into something negative. This is evidenced by the fact that he immediately made the post of FB to garner \u2018likes\u2019 and elicit comments. Many persons seek fame in this regard. As a responsible officer, he should explain why he was bent on having a video done while stopping a vehicle for a \u2018routine\u2019 search. He should also explain why he took the evidence he collected \u2018illegally\u2019 immediately to FB, rather than reporting it to his superiors and allowing them to take the necessary action.
\nIt is also evident that the \u2018calm and cool\u2019 disposition of the traffic Police is clearly as a result of the fact that he was doing a recording of the event.
\nIn the case of Persaud, the Police had acted in their usual aggressive, rude and uncouth manner, since no recording was being done. Again, this would assume that it was the \u2018game plan\u2019 in Mr Crawford\u2019s case that the provocation bear fruit, and it did. The Police officer received lots of \u2018likes\u2019 on FB.
\nMr Crawford gave sound legal reasoning, which is backed by what the then Acting Commissioner of Police Mr David Ramnarine had clearly pronounced on in August 2016. He made it clear that the Guyana Police Force has zero tolerance for ranks that set up roadblocks or randomly stop private vehicles without authorisation, and that they can do so only if an offence has been committed; and that \u2018willy-nilly\u2019 stops must be discontinued.
\nMr Crawford made it clear to the Police officer that there must be reasonable suspicion that an offence is being committed, and it is clear that there was no \u2018reasonable suspicion\u2019.
\nMoreover, our Constitution, in Article 149 (1) and (2), made it clear that no person shall be deprived of his freedom of movement throughout Guyana unless by lawful detention, and since there was no \u2018reasonable suspicion\u2019 to detain Mr Crawford, it can be concluded that his constitutional rights have been violated, regardless of how brief it was.
\nMr Ramnarine had further stated that some Police would take advantage of \u2018soft and weak\u2019 persons and demand money from them if their documents are not in order. Definitely, Mr Crawford cannot be categorised as \u2018soft and weak\u2019!
\nI am sure the multitude of persons illegally stopped by the Police daily have the \u2018know-how\u2019 to react in this manner, and would have wanted to act like Mr Crawford, but desisted for various reasons, fear being paramount. But it is hoped that this much-publicised incident would bring the gravity of these illegal stops and detentions to a screeching halt, and Police Commissioner Mr Leslie James will ensure that this is done, to avoid a similar or worse occurrence.<\/p>\n
Yours sincerely,
\nHaseef Yusuf
\nRDC Councillor, Region Six<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Editor, The record-breaking use of expletives by Attorney-at-Law Ryan Crawford should not be the main focus on the incident which took place on the ECD Public Road, and so detract from the casus belli which provoked the outburst. It is interesting to read of a similar incident which is related by another Attorney-at-Law and a sitting Member of Parliament, Mr Charrandass Persaud. In a letter to the media, he said, \u201cOn Friday, August 24, 2018, about 8.50pm, I was stopped at Vigilance at a \u201croadblock\u201d. No \u2018goodnight\u2019, no \u2018please\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48775,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48774\/revisions\/48775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guyanatimesinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}