And, today Commissioner Chester Williams was singing from the same song sheet. He said the GSU has been excessive - and even somehow referred to them as animals- referring to how they treat gang members. Incidentally, that's a term Williams himself made popular - talking about gang members as animals. But, today, it was behaviour he laid at the feet of the GSU.
Leaving that to them, he then echoed his new minister, saying the Unit has to be re-branded and re-purposed.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"In terms of the gang suppression unit I have expressed to the minister and to cabinet yesterday that as the commissioner the name GSU have in deed left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Belizeans and it is time that we look at the unit and do a rebranding. Now do we need such a unit, the answer is yes. We do need it but we must look at how we can refocus or redirect what GSU does. And after we do the re-branding we will insert a commander who will be able to fashion that new direction that we want the GSU to go. I believe that once we do that then we should be on good footing in terms of the public seeing that there is the move on the part of the police government to be able to ensure that every citizen is treated with respect by the police. Now that does not mean that it will stop police brutality. Police brutality will continue until you and I are gone, but the important thing is that whenever it manifests itself we must be able to take appropriate action so that the public can see that we are not covering whatever wrongdoing our officers are doing out on the streets."
Reporter
"What do you say to those who might say that it just being the same old horses different colors?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"It is not just a rebranding and business as usual. If we do a rebranding and business as usual then we have not achieve nothing. It must be a rebranding and a change in direction and so what we have done is that we have put together the concept document in terms of what we want the unit to do and the most important thing that the unit must do is to be able to ensure that they gather actionable and timely intelligence on gang activities so that we can take appropriate actions to be able to stem any gang flare ups in whatever parts on Belize City, because we must understand we have gangs among us, they are not going nowhere right now and we must have a unit that will be able to deal with them. But the only thing that we must be careful in terms of how we deal with them, are we going to treat them like human beings or are we going to treat them like animals and the truth is GSU in the past have behave to some extent like animals treating people in a way that they should not be treated and we want to ensure that that is no longer the case and if it is that we change the name we have the new concept document, we explain to the officers what is the new concept, if anybody feel like they cannot live up to that concept then they have to go. It is not for the department to adjust to the officers, it's for the officers to adjust to wherever the department is going and that's the reason why I am saying that we are going to ensure we have a commander in place who is going to fashion that change because in deed the whole culture will have to change and it might also require changing a number of the officers who are currently assign at the unit in order for us to be able to achieve that change of culture."
