By Amin Kef Sesay
Police brutality or Police violence is legally defined as a civil rights violation where law enforcement officers exercise undue or excessive force against a subject. This includes, but is not limited to, bullying, physical or verbal harassment, physical or mental injury, property damage and death.
Back in 2016 or 2017, the killing of two people at a protest launched a debate about the tactics of the police.
Other than that, killing of people by Police in Tonkolili, Freetown, Makeni and other places mean that it is high time we as a nation confront the issue of Police lawlessness with impunity. The crux of the matter is: How do you maintain law and order in a civilized nation? Is it the presence of guns?
Makeni was not the first time that Police have killed innocent people.
What is troubling about Police killings is that nothing seems to come out of the numerous investigations that follow. This leaves frustrated victims and their families without justice.
In Makeni and other places where Police have wantonly killed civilians, people no longer have trust in the Police. If these sorts of things continue to happen, peace will suffer, and the potential for reprisals and conflict will thrive, many say.
It can be recalled that following the Kabala incident some years back, a press release from the Campaign for Human Rights and Development International (CHRDI), said that: “For far too long, there has been double standard in place for Police Officers involved in incidents of brutality and misconduct. The ease with which Police Officers use live bullets to disperse unarmed protesters is a very worrying sign for peace and tranquility and the country’s political future.”
Superintendent Brima Kamara, Head of the Sierra Leone Police’s Media and Public Relations denied the allegations, pointing the finger instead at protesters for taking the law into their own hands.
He maintained that all civil protests must be approved by the Police according to the country’s 1965 Public Order Act. The protesters in Kabala, he said, did not follow this procedure, which was why the Police had to fire tear gas. In the heat of that moment, Kamara adds, the protesters started throwing stones and other missiles at the Police.
What the Executive Director of the Institute for Governance Reform (IGR) Andrew Lavali holds is that in the twenty first century, there are alternatives to bullets for crowd control. “Most of the circumstances leading to the use of live bullets in Sierra Leone over the past years are not warranted; they do not meet the minimum threshold,” he said.
The right to protest, he maintained is a “constitutional provision that must be respected by law enforcers. Any loss of civilian life in a protest must be thoroughly and speedily investigated and culprits brought to book.”
Lavali said that as monitors of peace and governance in Sierra Leone, they have found that: “Most incidences of shootings and unlawful killings of civilians are not investigated, and [as] such serve as motivation for reoccurrence of the problem.”
Responding, Superintendent Kamara agreed that the Police should be on the side of the people, including those that are not part of any protests.
“Our responsibility is to protect lives and property, and when we realize that these lives and property will come under threat during a proposed protest, we are bound to prevent it,” he said.
The nation looks forward to seeing the Police using more humane crowd control measures to deal with protesters and demonstrators because it is their right as citizens in a democracy and for Police Officers who deliberately use excessive forces against unarmed civilians brought to book as deterrence to others.
