Dear Editor,
What does it take to lose your job in this country? Clearly, allowing public confidence in national security to collapse is not enough.
A young woman is reportedly dead after gunmen entered a house in Bathlodge. A 13-year-old boy, reportedly shot in the face, is fighting for his life. Another man is wounded.
The country is burning. People are dying. Yet citizens are expected to keep extending patience to an establishment whose assurances grow more worthless with every attack.
Enough.
The Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police should resign. If they refuse, the Prime Minister should demand their resignations. The country cannot continue burying its people while those responsible for national security remain beyond accountability.
Ordinary workers face consequences for failing to perform. Why should those entrusted with public safety be protected from that same standard?
And the Prime Minister cannot escape this reckoning.
Keeping the same leadership in place is a decision. Accepting the same explanations is a decision. The consequences belong at his door.
These offices do not belong to their occupants. No friendship, political loyalty or length of service should place anyone beyond removal when the public’s safety is at stake.
Gunmen reportedly walked into a home and opened fire. A child is fighting for his life. How much worse must it become before protecting the public takes precedence over protecting positions?
Prime Minister, spare the country another assurance unless you can back it with action. Your continued confidence in these officials offers no comfort to people afraid to sleep in their own beds.
If this level of bloodshed cannot shake your confidence in those responsible, the public has every reason to lose confidence in you.
Start hanging them or electric chair
In this country we settle for mediocrity, no one will step down or resign. Just walk into a government office to do business and you see the type of people they hire.
They manners and behavior is appalling, that’s the best word I can use to describe them.
They manners and behavior is appalling, that’s the best word i can use for describe them.
Get the Police Commissioner, the Attorney General, and if you won’t, Mr Prime Minister, you too, must go! ENOUGH!
Cutie and the commissioner need to go.
Cutie is to comfortable sitting in that chair doing nothing.
Time to go.
The anger, fear and frustration expressed in this letter are understandable, especially when lives are being lost and children are being caught in violence. People have every right to demand accountability from those entrusted with national security.
But accountability cannot stop at the doors of the Government, the Attorney General or the Commissioner of Police.
We also have to ask a very uncomfortable question: What responsibility do we, as citizens, have in helping to make our communities safer?
Government and law enforcement cannot solve every murder, shooting or act of violence on their own when people within our communities know what happened, know who is involved, hear things, see things—and refuse to speak.
We cannot demand that the police solve crimes while protecting the people committing them.
We cannot condemn gun violence publicly and then practise a code of silence privately.
We cannot know that illegal guns are being hidden in our communities, know who is threatening whom, know who committed a crime, and decide that it is “not our business”—until the violence arrives at our own doorstep.
And this should not be reduced to politics.
Whether you support the Government or oppose it, whether you like the Attorney General, the Commissioner of Police or the Prime Minister is secondary when people are losing their lives. Public officials absolutely have a responsibility to protect the country, develop effective strategies, properly resource law enforcement and be held accountable for the decisions they make. But citizens have responsibilities too.
My concern is what happens after the outrage.
Today everybody is angry. Everybody is posting. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody wants somebody fired.
But what happens when the noise dies down?
1. Will we still be talking about crime prevention next week?
2. Will witnesses come forward?
3. Will families speak up when they know their relatives are involved in criminal activity?
4. Will communities stop shielding offenders?
5. Will people provide information before another person is killed rather than after?
6. Or will we forget—until another mother is grieving, another child is shot, another family is destroyed and another community is traumatized?
Then the cycle begins again: outrage, finger-pointing, demands for resignations, silence—and eventually another tragedy.
If we genuinely want change, everybody has a role to play.
Hold the Government accountable. Hold the police accountable. Demand answers. Demand better strategies. Demand results.
But while we are pointing one finger at public officials, we must be willing to examine what is happening within our own communities.
A police officer cannot act on information that nobody is willing to provide. Investigators cannot use evidence that witnesses deliberately withhold. Government cannot place an officer inside every home, on every street corner or beside every citizen 24 hours a day.
Community safety has to be a partnership between the authorities and the people they serve.
This is bigger than political parties, personalities and positions. This is about our children, our families, our communities and the kind of country we want to live in.
– So yes, ask what the Government is doing.
– Ask what the Attorney General is doing.
– Ask what the Commissioner of Police is doing.
– Ask what law enforcement is doing.
But we must also have the courage to ask:
What are WE doing?!!!
Because if we truly want the violence to stop, responsibility cannot belong only to “them.”
It belongs to all of us.
Gaston Browne would never ask Cutie Benjamin to resign. Yes, he can be the commissioner of police, but not Cutie. That is one minister Gaston would never touch. We, the people of this country, have to endure until the next general election to vote Cutie out of office.
We need more Coast Guard boats patrolling our waters day and night. These guns have to be coming into our country by sea, where fishermen are being paid to collect them.
All boxes, barrels, and containers are scanned in Miami before being put on a cargo ship. Once Miami detects anything illegal, it will report it to the ONDCP in Antigua. When we hear about drug busts at the airport and port, it’s because Miami already notified them.
We need more disguised police and military personnel on the streets day and night, especially on block corners among civilians—real disguises, as I saw in NYC: police in the force with facial hair, and even razor locks. Even being a vagrant on the streets—vagrants do hear a lot of what is happening where drugs, guns and weapons are being sold. Yes, you might say I watch too much Law & Order, CSI, etc… Police and Military officers need to be two steps ahead of criminals’ plans.
I agree with you, but the police here are lazy and corrupt
Correction: Gaston Browne would never ask Cutie Benjamin to resign. Yes, he can ask the commissioner of police, but not Cutie. That is one minister Gaston would never touch. We, the people of this country, have to endure until the next general election to vote Cutie out of office.
We need more Coast Guard boats patrolling our waters day and night. These guns have to be coming into our country by sea, where fishermen are being paid to collect them.
All boxes, barrels, and containers are scanned in Miami before being put on a cargo ship. Once Miami detects anything illegal, they notify the ONDCP office in Antigua. When we hear about drug busts at the airport and port, it’s because Miami already notified them.
We need more disguised police and military personnel on the streets day and night, especially on block corners among civilians—real disguises, as I saw in NYC: we need police in the force with facial hair (beard), and even Rasta locks. Even playing a vagrant on the streets helps —vagrants do hear a lot of what is happening where the drugs, guns and weapons are being sold. Yes, you might say I watch too much Law & Order, CSI, etc. Police and Military officers need to be two steps ahead of criminals’ plans.
Longggg Stroopessssss
Author, this is just to put your letter into context.
Senior police leaders are rarely forced to resign solely because crime rates increase, though political pressure can make their positions untenable.
Why Rising Crime Rarely Triggers Automatic ResignationsComplex Causes: Crime is tied to broader socioeconomic factors—like poverty, mental health, and court backlogs—rather than just police performance.
Operational Independence: In many democracies, police chiefs operate independently from direct political control to prevent political bias in law enforcement.
Contractual Protections: Senior officers usually hold fixed terms or civil service protections, meaning elected officials cannot fire them on a whim over fluctuating statistics.
When Pressure Does Lead to ResignationsScandals and Corruption:
A specific failure of conduct, institutional misogyny/racism, or a high-profile botched investigation usually triggers calls for resignation much faster than rising property or violent crime rates.
Loss of Political Confidence: If local or national leaders (such as Police and Crime Commissioners in the UK) lose faith in a chief’s ability to reform a struggling department, behind-the-scenes pressure often results in “voluntary” departures.
Systemic Collapse: In extreme cases of total operational failure or loss of public consent, public outrage forces leaders to step down to save the agency’s reputation.
The public has a right to demand accountability, especially when a child is fighting for his life. But changing the people at the top alone won’t fix the problem if the same weaknesses in policing and national security remain.
In almost any other job, repeated failure would lead to disciplinary action or dismissal. Yet when it comes to public safety, officials issue statements, condemn the violence and then continue as though nothing has happened. Citizens deserve more than condolences after every killing. We need a clear strategy, measurable results and consequences when those results are not achieved.
The most disturbing part is that people no longer feel safe inside their own homes. A home should be a place of security, but gunmen reportedly entered a residence and opened fire on a young woman, a child and another man. That represents a terrifying breakdown in public safety. The country needs decisive action, not another press conference filled with familiar words.
The Prime Minister must accept that retaining the same officials is also a leadership decision. He cannot repeatedly express confidence in those responsible for national security while the situation continues to deteriorate. At some point, political loyalty must give way to the public interest. No position should be more important than the lives of citizens.
The anger in this letter is understandable. A woman has been killed, a child is fighting for his life, and a community is grieving. The public deserves more than another promise that the perpetrators will be caught. Calls for the Attorney General and Commissioner of Police to resign are a legitimate demand for accountability. At the same time, whether either should leave office should be judged against clear evidence: what was done to prevent and respond to violent crime, whether those measures worked, and where leadership failed. The Prime Minister also has a responsibility to explain what changes the government will make. Right now, the immediate priorities are finding those responsible, protecting the injured and their families, and giving the public an honest account of the steps being taken to make communities safer.