Two Questions For The Commissioner Of The Royal Barbados Police Force:
1/ Under what circumstances is a Barbados police officer allowed to shoot a person in the back of the head?
2/ What kind of pea-shooters are we issuing to our police when a person can survive a bullet in the back of the head?
From The Nation News…
ST MICHAEL MAN detained in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) with a bullet lodged in the back of the head is claiming he was wrongfully shot by police.
From his bedside in Ward A3 on Thursday, Stefan Griffith, 26, said he was riding a bicycle along Wilkinson Road, St Michael, on Tuesday night when he observed a jeep blocking his path.
“The lights [headlamps] were bright and I didn’t know who was driving the jeep so I dropped the bicycle and started to run.
“When I looked back I saw this policeman with a gun in his hand running behind me. He [policeman] was shouting, ‘Stop! Stop!’ and all of a sudden I hear pax, and then I feel a burning at the back of my head,” he said.
Griffith, who now has blurred vision and swelling at the front of the face, said he had done nothing wrong.
His mother Janice Griffith, a 41-year-old worker with the Sanitation Service Authority, said a neurosurgeon who examined her son at the hospital said in addition to a fracture and a bullet lodged at the back of the head, there were also metal fragments in his brain…
… read the entire article at The Nation News (link here)
Barbados Free Press 
A sad case. Still not sure why the victim claimed he ran from the police. There maybe more to it than just ‘ beaming headlights’.
The police need to reflect on how they approach citizens in such matters. The recent kicking down of a lady’s door ( in search of her son ) with a odd looking search warrant is another example.
Mr. Attorney General, where is the promised Chairperson of the Police Complaints Authority ???
Wake up Mr. AG you have been sleeping too long, there is destruction in the city…..!!
The Commissioner of Police himself I seem to remember said he was investigating a death recently.
The details are sketchy in my mind now, but by now we should know of his findings.
Relying on people to forget is not right where a death or serious injury is concerned.
The story by the ‘victim’ sounds a bit shady to be honest but i don’t think it justifies a bullet to the back of the head . We probably should wait until more info is forthcoming to make a better analysis of the situation. However , i find stories of Police apparent or otherwise misbehaviour are becoming more and more common . I don’t think its helping with the publics perception of them at all. Its going to cause alot of distrust of the force which can never be a good thing .The job is hard enough as it is.
If an unarmed bicyclist running from police is “confrontational” God help us all!
The police have a tough job and deserve our help, but even if the man concerned was a baddie, there is no justification for shooting him down, even in the legs. What happened to “collaring” a suspect?
A shoot-first-ask=questions-after policy will only make gun ownership more widespread.
Every story has at least two sides…would be interesting to hear what the Police side is. Police in Bim don’t normally shoot wildly and without provication at suspicious characters who run from them…
While I agree that every story has two sides… A few years ago, a guy I knew was caught picking sea eggs out of season. The police had apprehended him and were putting him into the vehicle. He struggled, got loose and ran. The policeman pulled his gun and shot at this guy three times. Yes – he was a criminal – but to try to KILL the guy over this incident – over the top!
Lousy shot!
Anon, the police here aren’t really bright, they don’t or can’t seem to effectively think out a strategy to diffuse a situation with minimum or no harm to both parties. It’s much easier to shoot someone in their back then it is to run em down.
I think it’s time for the implimentation of non-leathful weapons along with the use of guns for our lawmen….tasers…wait, angry lawmen with tasers might be a bad idea after all hahah
*********
The local Police don’t get paid very much for putting up with the antics of the criminal element.
I say the Cops should shoot the ********** in the back,if necessary, and rid the island of such vermin.
Abc says shoot to kill.
***********
Edited for Auntie Moses
It is alright for a boy to be as stupid as Abc so long he don’t use bad words!
Maybe the next person to get shoot in the back will be Abc. As Disposable Arts would say, his is “the most dumbest” post today.
ABC fail to realize how easy it is to be seen or sculpted into as a criminal by some of our police.
Talking form experience, i remember being out late having a game of dominoes with friends from the islands beneath the street light, just catching up and having a good time when up comes a car…which stops allowing 5 armed men “chucking guns” to disembark. Now i correctly assumed they were cops, my friends didn’t, and thought they were going to be robbed, one of them ran but then quickly stopped after shouts from us telling him it was ok, it’s just the police, when he finally stopped and return to where we were, one of the cops told him ” i shoulda just shoot you in your ass for running” and punched him in the gut….my friend being a law student asked for some identification as they were undressed, using a normal civilian car with no indications of it belonging to the police…..after hearing his request the same cop who had struck him told him “we the police, we aint gotta show you anything, if you don like it, walk away and see if i don shot you this time”……so they we were, being searched, questioned by armed men who refused to show some sort of police identification.
We all had the right to walk away….but then what ? arrested for disobeying the law? or worst, shot? None of us being this “vermin” abc speaks about but law abiding people.
I seriously wouldn’t doubt they shot an unarmed kid for the simple fact he ran.
As long as we allow judges and people in the prosecution department to be members of masonic lodges then these types of police brutality will go away. If the officer that pulled the trigger is not a mason already, his immediate pledge of allegiance to some order will more or less guarantee that justice is not served. It’s called selling your soul (or future favours)
Peace
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THE MASONIC LODGE LOL LOL
The report says “apparently” and there is only the victim’s word about what he was doing and how the incident happened. I know the Police have made many mistakes but they are still the people we turn to when we have a problem. Cut them some slack nuh? Innocent people don’t usually run in those circumstances. Society is not yet that lawless.
Most of the “victims” are choir boys on their way home from choir practice singing or they are delivering some package to a charitable organisation. None of them are ever in the act of some criminal pastime, but that is human nature. Lie until proven guilty and then still deny it.
Are you Barbadian???
How would you know what Police in Barbados do???Have you ever experience what they do???
As a youngster of 16yrs i was riding a bike along the sidewalk on day in Welches St. Michael when a marked police vehicle pulled up next to me and an officer bound out the car and said to me “Get that rass*%$ bicycle of the sidewalk before I shoot you.” Then he approached me and dragged me of the bike and roughed me up by dragging me around by my shirt. I wasnt doing anything wrong because I was on the sidewalk directly infront of my house and even if I shouldnt be on the sidewalk with the bike why should that officer threatened to shoot me and making movement towards his gun??
Have you ppl forgotten the day those off duty officer beat up those two guys at Kensington Oval??? The police in B’dos are too heavy handed and it will be to their detriment
Shot in the back of the head, and was not carrying a weapon or the police would have said so.
No excuse for that.
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We live in a world controlled by elite groups who have pimps around the world. Police are there to keep the poor in their place and to brutalize them, if need be. The poor may make a few dollars (slave job, in the matrix, selling drugs, teaching, janitor, farmer, etc) but they are in slavery to the food store, the school system, the banks, etc.
And until the masses realize that religion is one of the main enslavers, and that their own leaders (political, etc) have sold them out, poor men (around the world) will continue to be shot in the head, neck, and everywhere else (women are also being brutalized).
We must unite and leave our political, religious, national differences outside and discuss these matters rationally if we are to change the world. Further, we must setup our own Internet protocols, DNS, Hosting firms, and also negotiate withe the United Nations, World Bank, IMF, International Criminal Court, etc, and if such negotiations prove to be fruitless, then setup our own global organizations (political, banking, religious, educational, defensive) or we shall be DESTROYED. It’s that simple, we are acting as though this is a game because we are divided by religions, nationalities, etc. Foolish people, but I do hope that this victim survives and has kids that take things to the NEXT LEVEL.
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