Retired top cop renews calls for police accountability board

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Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police and former head of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Nuffield Burnette (File photo)
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By Charminae George

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Calls for a police accountability board have been renewed by retired assistant commissioner of police, Nuffield Burnette, who believes that enacting this into law would increase transparency and responsibility.

“We should ask for an accountability board. Let Parliament sit and create a bill and pass it in Parliament so that they have a proper board by which the police are held accountable. Otherwise, there is no professional organisation,” he stated on Observer AM yesterday.

Burnette lamented the police force’s reticence regarding the fatal shooting by law enforcement officers of 45-year-old Mannie James, which he said could not officially be considered an extrajudicial killing.

“Officially, we cannot say that…not necessarily because that may not be true, but because we have not had any accountability. Meaning that we have not had an investigation which is what determines whether or not we had an extrajudicial killing,” Burnette said.

James, a father-of-two, was shot and killed following a police chase on the night of July 31.

Burnette also commented on the recent failed proposal made by Police Commissioner Atlee Rodney, which would have given authority to the police force to declare limited states of emergency when deemed necessary.

In late August, the Cabinet rejected Commissioner Rodney’s proposal for special legislation allowing the police force to declare limited states of emergency.

The commissioner said the move would allow for effective responses to volatile situations by isolating and securing those locations.

But Burnette claimed such powers would be unconstitutional and that the proposal had been doomed to fail from the outset.

He continued, “The police is service-oriented…. not control-oriented. The police is to be concerned with the service that they give to their customers, the public.”

He went on to say that more work needs to be done in regards to community policing and highlighted its importance in maintaining law and order.

“That term ‘community policing’ is as old as policing itself…founded in 1829…Policing cannot be successful without the community policing aspect of it,” he said.

Community policing refers to a collaboration between the police and the community which identifies and solves problems with the community, according to ojp.gov.

Police spokesman, Inspector Frankie Thomas, declined to comment on Burnette’s remarks, when invited to do so by Observer, as he had not heard Burnette’s interview.

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