AS IN other wars, truth is the first casualty in the all too frequent confrontations between the citizens of inner-city communities and the police. The situation was no different in Majesty Gardens last Thursday.
According to police reports, JPSCo workmen sent to remove illegal electricity connections and their police escorts were forced to retreat when angry residents began throwing stones and bottles at them. It is alleged that shots were also fired from the community. In the melee, a 12-year-old boy was shot in fire returned by the police. Two JPSCo employees were injured. Three police vehicles and three of the vehicles of the utility company were damaged. The residents subsequently blocked the road in protest.
The residents tell a different story. For the past few weeks, a group of policemen have been passing through the area asking them if they are not 'starting the war' so that they (the police) could 'kill off some of them'. On the day of the disconnection operation, residents allege that two of those same policemen began firing at them for no reason whatsoever and they retaliated. With superior fire-power of stones and bottles and the odd gunshot as alleged by the police they forced a retreat of the police and the JPSCo workmen.
The sub-text of the confrontation and confusion is the theft of electricity, and the apparent right to do so. One resident acknowledged and described, on air, the illegal connections on which the community relies. Others have complained that had they been provided with legal electricity as promised, they would have got rid of the illegal connections.
This has become the regular routine: first set up illegal operations by squatting, stealing electricity, or whatever, and then force the authorities to regularise and reward the illegal. The pattern is so widespread and has worked so well, aided and abetted by the political system, that the good people of Majesty Gardens feel at liberty to vent their righteous indignation over being victimised by being denied their right to illegal electricity. And blocking other people's freedom of movement with roadblocks can only help the cause.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
