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August 15, 2015 | By KNews

Mr. Glenn Lall challenged me to go, see for myself and think about writing a column on the conditions I saw. On Thursday afternoon, I journeyed inside the CID offices at Eve Leary, accompanied by Dale Andrews.
Before I describe the appalling interior of the CID offices, I need to remind readers that more than a decade ago I went inside the CID offices at Brickdam, and what I saw there concretized my feelings against the PPP Government. I remember doing a Sunday column on the CID at Brickdam. There could not have been a more horrible CID office anywhere else in the world. There were conditions that were sub-human.
In 2013, I was at the Brickdam station. My observations were contained in my Feb 26, 2013 column titled “Madness at the Brickdam Police Station.” Here is what I wrote:  “Leonard Craig and I took a rape victim to the CID at Brickdam. The CID computer had broken down. The statement was typed on a private laptop and a police woman went on the road to get it printed. I went into the office of the Fraud Squad… wood-ants were eating the place. The CID offices at Brickdam are without phones and not one desk has a computer. The senior officer was drinking a hot Pepsi. I asked him if there was a fridge.” (end of quote)
The next year I went to Brickdam again. Again I did a column on what I saw, titled, “Desecration of modern civilization in Guyana,” May 16, 2014.  I wrote the following; “We stumbled upon an empty store room full of cartons of station entry books. The pages for several of these books were missing and dozens of pages were scattered on the floor. The books themselves were in terrible condition. A station entry book is a recording of all the transactions between the station and the public who came to the station to make a complaint or related business. Some of these books were dated as recent as 1999.” (end of quote)
Here now are my observations of the CID offices at Eve Leary. My first stop was the Registry. The little makeshift door to gain entry is dirty and primitive. With all the classy wood species Guyana has, a proper, decorative door should have been there a long time ago. The Registry tells a sad story of a deeply primitive country. There isn’t the computerization of police files. There are mountains and mountains of paper files that rival the height of Mount Everest. God help Guyana if rain causes the roof to collapse and those files are water-soaked or if there is a fire.
The Crime Chief was not there, so while I was leaving I saw a dilapidated office, the door of which is made of wooden louvres with many of the panes missing, so you can hear what is being said by persons inside. It is painted in white and the paint faded as long ago as 1967 when Procol Harum sang one of history’s most famous soft rock classics, “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
As my curiosity drew me closer to this office with the name, “Firearm Investigation Unit,” a detective leant forward from his small chair across a little desk that is as tiny as what they use in nursery school and said, “you shouldn‘t have done that,” to which I replied, “done what?”
He said it was off-limit and I should not have peeped inside. By this time a spark of anger stirred inside of me and I retorted by informing him that I had no apologies to make for showing curiosity towards an office that was dirty, primitive and falling apart, and located inside the head office of the Guyana Police Force and was being used by humans.
Assistant Superintendent Michael Caesar came up to me. It was obvious he knew why I was there. He informed me that since I came to see the person who was not in office, then I should leave.
The CID offices at Eve Leary are in bad condition. The place needs re-wiring and a complete overhaul. The walls are dirty; the roofs leak. The zinc sheets of the cafeteria are falling off. The rain will obviously wet the food. To think that the police could work under those conditions while Jagdeo used 60 million American dollars to build a Marriott. There is no parking space for officers’ vehicles. That space is a graveyard of rotted and rotting vehicles that have been there since the days of banned wheaten flour. That space is an embarrassment to modern civilization.