I received a message via Blackberry Instant Messenger recently that was quite disturbing. I had previously spoken about this application concerning matters of the heart. Now I want to address matters relating to crime. It has become popular now for people to send broadcasts messages via BBIM. These messages range from stolen items to fete and club promotions to protest on the Beetham. My issue is when the messages involve the activities of the police. The message I received and I quote “Police road block on the bus route by aranguez savanah”. It is a quote so I had to spell Arranguez and Savannah wrong. The average citizen usually does not know the reason for a road block simply because the police do not need to indicate the purpose of a road block. Even if the road block is routine and they are not looking for anybody in particular the point is to catch people who break the law. That is the job of the police which would assist in them achieving their mandate of protecting and serving. Why would you want to alert people of this activity? Is it that we as Trinidadians are friendly with criminals and we want to help them avoid the police?
There are several implications of this activity that we often do not consider. The first is that supposed there is a rapist driving along his merry way. This person has gone undetected for several years, however his insurance happens to be expired. Stopped in the seemingly innocent road block he is apprehended and taken to the station where he is charged and his fingerprints taken. These fingerprints then happen to match a series of rapes in East Trinidad. Would the rapist have been caught if he was alerted to the road block in advance? Now don’t in your mind say this scenario is farfetched because the point is that we should not circulate this type of information as the only people who benefit from this are law breakers. We do not know where this information would end up. We do not know the motives of many of the people around us. The police already have a difficult time staying ahead of criminals who do not have rules, regulations and laws that govern their operations. Please I am begging everybody to be responsible in the information that we disseminate. Once the information leaves us we have no control over where it would end up. Finally people should question the type of friends they have that would benefit from receiving a message of that nature and possible have a chat with the person about their illegal behaviour or distance themselves from the person.
Needless to say the person who sent me the message to me got an earful. Admittedly she was not aware of the implication of transmitting the message. So my friends fix the ME in criME and stop making the work of the police more difficult.
There are several implications of this activity that we often do not consider. The first is that supposed there is a rapist driving along his merry way. This person has gone undetected for several years, however his insurance happens to be expired. Stopped in the seemingly innocent road block he is apprehended and taken to the station where he is charged and his fingerprints taken. These fingerprints then happen to match a series of rapes in East Trinidad. Would the rapist have been caught if he was alerted to the road block in advance? Now don’t in your mind say this scenario is farfetched because the point is that we should not circulate this type of information as the only people who benefit from this are law breakers. We do not know where this information would end up. We do not know the motives of many of the people around us. The police already have a difficult time staying ahead of criminals who do not have rules, regulations and laws that govern their operations. Please I am begging everybody to be responsible in the information that we disseminate. Once the information leaves us we have no control over where it would end up. Finally people should question the type of friends they have that would benefit from receiving a message of that nature and possible have a chat with the person about their illegal behaviour or distance themselves from the person.
Needless to say the person who sent me the message to me got an earful. Admittedly she was not aware of the implication of transmitting the message. So my friends fix the ME in criME and stop making the work of the police more difficult.
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