Dear Sir,
First of all, I thank you for your very courageous words of appreciation addressed to my person for having brought the ‘Cimmaron case’ to your attention in the form of an Open letter last week Friday, February 18, 2011.
It is my privilege to inform you as follows on the responses I received.
If I for one minute alone, had thought that I stood alone for writing you my open letter expressing my deep concern at the allegations leveled on the Police-force of St. Maarten, by Cimmaron MARLIN, I have been proven to be wrong – ‘dead wrong’.
The number of reactions of outrage out there in the public, as a consequence of this particular case of alleged police brutality and alleged police involvement in carrying out a ‘hit’ on an innocent-, defenseless citizen has touched an extremely ‘raw nerve’.
Coupled with the perceived examples of ‘class-justice’ on the island and coupled with the other, the often used excuse that the police is too ‘understaffed’ to adequately fight crime-, the ‘real’ motive for the case at hand has now created lots of room for intense speculation.
Just check the various blog on the internet.
Therefore, as a nice person as you, the Chief Commissioner are generally perceived by many to be, there is a real pressure on you as well to ‘come clean’ about what happened in this- and other cases of alleged police brutality- , or face the wrath of the people.
Especially against the backdrop of a police-force, which for years, has been claiming not to be ‘up to par’ in terms of human and other resources, to protect its law-abiding citizens, the question to be answered is the following.
What then, was the apparent ‘pressing justification’ to make available such a substantial use of an already stretched resource, to allegedly ‘back-jump’ a frail character like Cimmaron ?
What justified, given the circumstances of limited resources, the need to drag him in the station, to waste precious time, to allegedly brutalize, interrogate and hold him for hours, only to be released without charges- and certainly without a report and/or apologies ?
In other words.
What were the ‘compelling’ circumstances for the allegedly excessive amount of time and force used, while who knows, what real hard-core crimes were taking place at the same time endangering the general public ?
They must have been really compelling arguments I assume.
Did the police-officers perhaps genuinely mistake this frail-looking ‘nigga’ for OBL (the ‘cave-man’ of 9/11)?
Did they have any ‘credible’ intelligence that this ‘OBL-look-alike’ was about to blow up some, yet to be constructed ‘twin-towers’ on the ‘Friendly-island’ and they had no other choice than to ‘protect’ us from this ‘monster’ ?
Really ?
In that case, I would certainly ‘rest my case’.
Not only that-, I would recommend the officers for the highest ‘medal of bravery- and service’ of ‘Country St. Maarten’.
I hope you get the ‘giste’.
The point I am making here is the following.
You, Police Commissioner DE WITTE now have the very distinct responsibility to offer the community at large, a real solid and credible reason for having wasted so much of our scarce resources to apprehend this gentleman, torture him only to let him go without charges.
In addition, particularly serious are the allegation made by Mr. MARLIN, that in fact certain members of the Police-force are involved in carrying out paid ‘hits’ on citizens upon instructions of certain ‘principals’.
Needless to emphasize that this allegations is far worse than the ‘bad enough’ cases of ‘simple’ brutality.
If indeed proven to be true, or to even have a ‘semblance’ of truth, then this would have major security and legal consequences not only on island level, but on Kingdom and hemispheric level as well.
Therefore, we look anxiously forward to your response, because there is a growing and very ‘un-settling’ disconnect- and distrust between the police-force and many law-abiding citizens.
Again, we stress, that we have absolutely nothing personal against you, Mr.DE WITTE, because we all know that the ‘root-cause’ of this poor relationship is integral part of a much larger picture, certainly not of your making.
However, occupying the highest office of the St. Maarten Police, makes the ‘buck stop at your desk’.
While certainly, this particular case is very sensitive and complex, not dealing with it in an honest-, and transparent manner will only make matters much worse.
We all are humans and we all, one way or the other make mistakes, sometimes blunders or commit crime, no one is exempted as such.
Therefore, in the long run, if one has been on the ‘wrong side’ of the law (written or unwritten), it is better to come clean, humble one-self, acknowledge one’s part-, and accept the consequences, however severe.
That is the only way, for us as a people to move forward and to contribute to ‘healing’.
‘Country St. Maarten’ must mean something significant and fundamental.
More than people now having to be addressed as - 'honorable this'-, and 'honorable that', but meanwhile doing very 'dis-honorable this' and 'honorable that'...
We got to 'get for real' !
It can not-, and should not be ‘business as usual’.
In ending, Mr. DE WITTE.
Our St. Martin nation building-, and unification movement, of which I am privileged to be the president, is also willing to make its contribution towards the ‘healing process’.
Wishing you much wisdom and strength to do what is right.
With respect,
Leopold JAMES
