HANDLING A POLICE INVESTIGATION

Commissioner of Police Clayton Fernander

The newspapers in our country have been engaged in a lot of publicity for the investigation into the words of Superintendent Michael Johnson who is the head of the Criminal Detective Unit of The Bahamas Royal Bahamas Police Force.  He is now on leave because the voice notes circulated widely suggest that there was a criminal conspiracy to subvert the course of justice.  The matter is under investigation by the Security and Intelligence Branch of the Police Force.  There will be specialist help coming from the outside to ensure that there is a thorough and independent investigation with the latest state-of-the-art investigative tools and expertise.  This has not stopped the usual suspects led by the Opposition party for calling for such excesses as a Commission of Inquiry and that the matter should be led by foreigners.  The chief of the Coalition of Idiots (COI) Lincoln Bain went one better and launched on Facebook a full-scale attack on SIB saying that the police investigating themselves will only breed corruption.  The PLP has a more responsible view of the situation.  First, there is no evidence of endemic corruption in the police force There is evidence that one or two individuals may have been involved in subverting the course of justice.  We will have to await the outturn of that investigation.  In the meantime, the PLP nor any other right-thinking Bahamian should be engaged in trashing the Royal Bahamas Police Force which is our only law enforcement agency and which is an institution that has served us well these 51 years.  We call on these naysayers to stop it, cease and desist.