And for the GSU, this is yet another in a series of negative publicity events starring that controversial paramilitary unit.
Since its inception in 2012, the GSU has been dogged by a number of complaints against them for the excessive use fo force. Alternately, the unit has also been commended for its decisive work, like a few weeks ago when it caught a group of bank robbers immediately, killing one of them.
Today, the Commissioner said that part of the problem is that they answer too many commanding officers, which will now change:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"What we need to do - people use to complain in the past that the GSU doesn't answer to this one and that one, I do believe that we need to cut down the number of people the GSU answers to. Right now, the GSU answers to the Divisional Commander, the Eastern Division Commander, the Commander of Operations and the Commissioner of Police. So, it is too many persons that the GSU answers to, too many people. The reputation of GSU and what they can do, it is important that we minimize the number of persons who can deploy GSU especially to a volatile situation like what was happening at Port. So, my directive is that once there is any civil disobedience or any situation of a sensitive nature, the only person who will deploy GSU will be the commissioner of police, nobody else. So if the commander of GSU were to get a directive from anybody below the commissioner to be deployed, the commander of GSU will have a responsibility to call the commissioner and ask if the commissioner had given such directive, just to ensure that they are on the safe side. Now we expect that with Mr. Joseph coming in as the new commander of GSU we all know Joe, a very humble fellow, he has a wealth of experience in training and so we believe that him going to the GSU will be able to somewhat change the perception of GSU, because you know people tend to have a bitter taste in their mouth when they hear the name GSU or the acronym GSU. But we have to understand that as much as what happened out there is one that is distasteful to all of us, that the GSU has done a lot of good work as well. We cannot condemned the entire unit, because of what transpired out there, but rather to see what we can do to salvage the unit and make it better."
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