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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Abuse Occures When Weak Men holds Powerful Positions.


It is a sad thing when irresponsible and immature people are put in position of great responsibility; in other words when weak men are place in position of power. Such situations give rise to the misuse of resources and an increase in corruption and other unethical practices. I can say with a great deal of certainty, that this is so in the Bermuda Police Service.

All that’s glitters is not gold, and in the Bermuda Police Service, all who appear to be adult are not mature men and women. I can remember when I was a serving member of that institution; I became a target/victim of particular individuals for some very petty reasons. You see when I came to Bermuda; I left an active social, community and political life in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I always take the opportunity to share with the public whether by submitting articles for the news papers and or in my vocal expression whenever I was invited to the radio
station to speak or when I call into the live interactive radio programs). As it also is in Bermuda, I have mashed and irritated the social, political and other corns of many people in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and there were a great number of them who wanted and could not wait to get their revenge.

There was the case where ex-superintendent Randy Liverpool, a man who befriended me, who was at the time chairman of the Bermuda Police Service Promotion Board; and one who was solicited by a politician in St. Vincent to ensure that I failed. In this particular case a few Police Sergeants (PS) were solicited for his initial campaign against me; it was their task to frustrate me. There was a particular PS who will go into my incident updates and change the content, alter spelling, or just infused error into my updates, after which he will call me in the presence of the other officer and in a loud tone of annoyance, speak of the errors I was suppose to have made. This was done in order to infuse within my psyche a sense of insecurity and thus replacing the confidence I had.

After a few such incidents, I began to first write my updates in Microsoft word Document, ensure that the content of the updates were spell check then I will paste it onto the AS400 (the program that is used by the Bermuda Police Service to log offences). Yet the same things occurred.

So I decided to print my update immediately after I finish typing, spell checking and pasting it onto the AS400. I can remember the shock this PS had, when he called me into the office, the door wide open; as he began to humiliate me; fortunately for me, this time I was prepared for him. When he began to speak I took out the printout for the particular update, (this caught him by surprised) I look at the errors he pointed out, I compared them to the content of print out; it was then I noticed that the content of the updates on the AS400 and the content of my printed out were different. So I confidently handed the copy of my printout to the Police Sergeant and I told him, “I do not know who wrote or tampered with that update but that is not the update I did. After which, I exited the PS office with a sense of relief, victory and pride in my demonstration of good deductive investigation. That was the last time I had any such experience.

Later the acting PS who after about seven attempt at the police exams and always seems to fail the interview due to his inability to articulate ideas was declared to have passed the exams even after men who are more knowledgeable, efficient and eloquent than him failed. This was the reward of the deal Randy Liverpool made with this particular Sergeant of Police for his efforts against me. He recruited many others who ensure that I was not given the opportunity to make overtime, to be come a certified, police trained SCUBA diver etc. But there were and are more important things than money.

Now to the main point of my discourse: everyone know that the Bermuda Police Service has a technology department that is highly trained and their technical ability far surpasses those regular commercial or other governmental information technology (IT) personnel. Unfortunately there are many senior police officers who often call upon members of the technology staff to bend the law for their personal, selfish, and egoistic gratification.

These guys are often called upon to remotely access people’s private email accounts, their private computers, other site and their personal account of social network (especially when they are set on private).

They also take liberty to listen into your private phone calls, be it land line or your cell. I know victims of this practice and I also know the individual who order such illegal surveillance. I can recall one such case where a senior officer after living a life of infidelity became suspicious that his wife was unfaithful to him. This man delegated police officers under his supervision to follow his wife, he also employed the other resources of the Bermuda Police Service to listen into and make a record of her cell phone calls. I truly envied these officers for they made lots of overtime when overtime was scarce.

It is a difficult task to prevent individuals from abusing such technology, but the Government of any country has an obligation to ensure that its citizen are protected from such unscrupulous men; they must also do all in their power to make sure the community privacy is protected. The government is also obligated to ensure that public funds and resources are not employed for the petty gratification of weak, selfish men who were entrusted with position of trust and power.