The Police Commissioner of Disenfranchised Crime Victims: Ian Alleyne
Yesterday the Pantomime land up in TV6 to check a friend. Long time I aint pass through the building; and while I was there I observed some thing that I have to share with all yuh….no, not a police raid….something far more insidious than that.
Which one is Ian and which one is the Father of the Nation? Doh hot yuh head too much....
Now everybody know Crime Watch…Ian Alleyne is a national figure….more people know Ian than know Naipaul, Walcott, CLR James, Rudy Capildeo etc (i hearing all yuh asking who?). Give Ian a few months again and people will think he is the father of the nation…feel I lying.
So hear the story….I land up in TV6 and while I waiting to speak and spoke I notice the lobby of the building pack up and choke up with people. Some of them have brown envelopes and folders in their hands and everybody have this worried but resigned and patient look on their face. All man and woman jack look working class….very working class. It was obvious in their dress code and their speech patterns. Because they talking, some in whispers and some louder and it was clear they waiting on somebody to reach. So, eventually one woman walk up to the security guard at about 5:15….I stand up there since 5, and she ask, “Neither he nor his assistants reach yet?” The officer tell her no and she went back to where the group of people waiting was and continue she vigil. By this time I dying with curiosity so I ask the guard, “Who they waiting on, officer?”. He tell me Ian….So I say, “What, he does have a live audience for the show now?” The guard good laugh at me. “No ma’am, they come to make reports”.
Now bear patience with me. I doh really follow the show. I watch it a handful of times and does more listen to people talk about Crime Watch than actually watch the show itself. So when I hear “make reports”, I had was to dress back…The guard show me the forms people does have to fill out and he start to give me a story, and for me, in a country where billions are allegedly spent on crime fighting equipment, hiring foreign Commissioners of Police and foreign Deputy Commissioners of Police, renting Crop Dusters, buying stain-proof uniforms, refurbishing temporary jails and not detecting clues and solving crimes this story that the guard give me was both disturbing and angering.
Every day from about 1pm people start gathering at TV6 waiting to talk to Ian. Most of them, the guard surmises, are poor people, poor in spirit, poor economically, poor in terms of their education. The guard shows me a copy of the form they have to fill out and it resembles a police report form…with some modifications and Ian’s cell phone number at the top. He says to me that most of the people who come to fill out reports need help filling them out because they often cannot read the forms or fill them out properly. So sometimes he has to help them. He indicated too that most people don’t understand that Alleyne doesn’t work at TV6, he just has a show there on evenings. He says it would help the back log of people if Alleyne had some assistants who could take the reports from the people and pass it on to him, or if he had an office elsewhere that people could go to.
As I stood there listening to his account and listening to the people talk amongst themselves about whatever issue they had come to see Ian about I realised….Alleyne doh want Gibbs wuk…he done have it!
In a country where National security has billions of dollars poured into it, few, if any of us really believe that crime solving is being done by the police and for a large portion of the population who are disenfranchised, voiceless and helpless, Ian Alleyne has become their voice. Now this, I had realised since the time of the alleged rape tape last year, when the feminist posse got themselves into a lather over the airing of the tape on TV, while there were other equally heinous things happening to women in the space that they never once spoke out about (cough cough Tunapuna Hindu Principal cough cough).
But actually seeing the patience, hope and long suffering on the faces in this room had me disturbed. What on earth is our government doing that people don’t expect to receive justice from the government, but expect justice from a private citizen? When Ian entered the lobby just before the start of his show the scrambling to touch the hem of the Crime Messiah’s garments was painful to observe! Surrounded by his security detail, Alleyne, for all his antics onscreen, certainly exudes some level of authority…and I am afraid that we really need to be afraid in this country.
For months I have been harping on the fact that we have NO CRIME PLAN….the government has not seen fit to ever deliver one to us. No objectives, no strategies, nothing. So, I am beginning to wonder if Kamla. Sandy, Gibbs and An& are hoping that Crime Watch is the crime plan?
In the 21 months and 10 days that they have been in office I haven’t felt any confidence in their ability to tackle the crime situation…not even with the farce of a SoE that had petty and serious crime continuing under curfew and round- the-clock surveillance (allegedly).
To be faced with this crowd in TV6’s lobby showed me just how impotent and incompetent this Govt really is. It’s major campaign promise to us – the fixing of crime – they have failed at…unequivocally. There is no coming back from that failure, not even if they impose a perpetual SoE on the country.
It occurred to me as I stood there watching the crowd surround Alleyne, that with the change in Govt, I have in fact received no change in quality of life. I cannot find three ways in which the policies of this current government has improved or enhanced my quality of life. I cannot find 3 promises this government made in its manifesto that it has kept.
I have to come to terms now with the reality that if I am a victim of crime in Trinidad and Tobago and want to see any real action on it, I don’t go to my local police station….instead, I must go down to TV 6 and fill out a Crime Watch report!
Doh Hot Yuh Head…He go hunt them down! This is 21st Century policing People’s Partnership style!
The Eternal Pantomime 
wow
I have heard of the pains that people take to get onto Ian Alleyne but never knew that it was this bad. We really need to do something about our Ministry of National Security. I remember Kamla and her crew calling for Martin Joseph’s head when crime was spiralling out of control but Sandy, Griffith and Gibbs are apparently adopting the “blame the PNM” and “serious crime down” strategies in saving their asses. This Gov’t is here to stay unfortunately, so is either we pray that a masked vigilante rises to fight crime or we line up by TV6.
I’m not surprised about the masses trying to see Ian. The people are disillusioned. The Government cannot solve crime. As citizens, we have to name the individuals when we know they are doing wrong. The justice system sucks, and there is still the problem of corruption in the Police Service. Is anything even being done about that? Our mentality as a people MUST change and not just accept exchange from those who should be working for us.
H Cummings…doh forget we have confidence in this our govt eh…they prove it this weekend!
Very interesting article, what seems to stand out is that the confidence of policing and crime solving is more potent and achievable under the watch of Trinidad’s Gotham finest Ian Alleyne and his band of merry men rather than Trinidad and Tobago Police Service with Gibbs, Ewaski, Mystar, Seales and all the other kakhi models who spend time arguing if polyester, wool or cotton is more comfortable and soothing to there skins. Ian Alleyne have the police looking like a bunch of circus clowns and don’t forget it have police officers who doing pj”s for the crime fighter but, TnT doh hot yuh head. Land of carnival, chutney, doubles, bake and shake, container of chicken cocaine, evidence storage move to ceiling of police station and all the other nice things you could think about a civilian could knight himself as a renegade police. Everything is anything. Bless~
I feel sorry for this sad situation, especially for Ian Allyne, when one is fighting for the people and making real head way, they step on toes of the ones behind the criminal fracas and ultimately meet their demise. He is fast becoming a very powerful man in society and the powers that be don’t like that, his days are numbered, they will soon find the right scheme to discredit him and destroy him for good.
Crime is a well oiled machine that keeps turning and fanning the fires of wickedness and greed if he keeps up his good deeds he will soon be ended.
It,s all about knowing you can report a crime and you,ll not be hunted down and kill by the suspect , so that goes to show that even the people who will not report a crime or give info on wrong doing to the police because they know or hear of someone who went to the police with information and the police leak the sauce of their information to protect their friends and family , but now people seeing crime being solved when you report it to Ian Alleyne , and know one is being targeted , so people feeling safer reporting crime to Ian and not police ,facts , if Ian Alleyne and crime watch was brought into being by the police service or national security it would not have been a success because people just dont trust the police service and will never trust them wit their life and their family ,so untill a person like Ian Alleyne is drafted into the national security system to give people that confident to report a crime with out fear of reprisal ,crime will remain the same no high tec weapons and gadgets will not work , the people on the ground is the most effective tools against crime ,just create an avenue for them to talk with out fear of reprisal ,and “crime solve”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-ZpHndBidk (you know ah was going to do that, right Rhodes?? lol….)
listen….i endorse and approve this wholeheartedly…..the Pantomime taking wetting!
Does Ian Alleyne “solve crimes”? Where’s the metrics to show his conviction rate? On the surface, he’s a reality show star, and behind the curtain, looking like a “community leader”,” helping” the poor and downtrodden, without real proof.
to the ppl for whom he is a “saviour” he certainly appears to solve crime. he gives the impression of doing something. and you can’t convince them otherwise. if a man call ian and tell him his car missing and ian bring it back as far as he concerned the crime solved. go to a police station and it’s a different story…so to many Ian appears to be “solving” crimes.