ARTICLE - BRIEFING ON LAW AND ORDER COMPLEXITIES

POLICE DG ANDRESOL BRIEFING ON COMPLEXITIES OF LAW AND ORDER IN "ISUZU" DEATH
(Defend Haiti) - By Diony Monestime

PORT-AU-PRINCE - The Director General of the Police Nationale d'Haiti described the complexities of law and order at a press conference, following a senate hearing into the death of an arrested suspect, Serge "Isuzu" Demothene; speculated to be part of the investigation of the BNC Chairman, Guiteau Toussaint.

Demothenes was reported to have been arrested in connection with the assassination of BNC Chairman Guiteau Toussaint. After the death of Isuzu which occurred while in custody of Petion-Ville police, the explanation was given that Isuzu had information regarding the assassination of Toussaint. Lawyers for Demothene have denounced the claims of the police department saying that the death of their client was due to an ongoing street war that their client had against a relative of the police department's commissioner, Vanel Lacroix, and further more that Lacroix was out of his jurisdiction when the arrest was made.

Director General of the Police Nationale d'Haiti, Mario Andrésol: "I cannot say it was an assassination or an attempted assassination on Desmosthene, because I do not have all the evidence."

"We are waiting on all the evidence to come and as they come in we will inform everyone as this is a very important matter. It is so important that it concerns the institution as a whole because if we are where we are today, it simply means that something is not working well."

"So we took the measures we did so that we can know the full extent of our responsibilities when all the truth comes out."

"So despite all the work Chief LaCroix has done, he was the Chief of that precinct, we put him on leave so that we can collect all the evidence to know what really happened. If our investigation reveals that he did not have anything to do with what happened, then he will be back to his regular duties. But if he’s implicated then appropriate sanctions will be taken against him accordingly."

"Senator, you’ve also mentioned something about him intervening outside of his jurisdiction. Let me address this clearly for you: Here’s the problem, as the Director of the Police force, if I had a warrant to arrest someone in Croix des Bouquets, I would not call on an officer in that precinct to execute the warrant. Because those areas, namely, Tabarre, Croix des Bouquets, there is some kind of mixture, some type of mafia that are involved in stealing land; a group of mafia that involves police officers, notaries, surveyors, all types of people who used to be big landowners. Whenever you have a warrant to execute in the area and you call the local police chief, he won’t get it executed."

"It’s not that I don’t trust the police officers there; there are some people in that area, that for you to get them arrested you’d need a special force to get them arrested. That means, the people are complaining now, because LaCroix authorized the execution of a warrant outside of his jurisdiction. He can do that. He’s a police officer and he had a warrant. Normally, he should have inquired, and asked the local chief to help, but all that depends on the situation."

"As for Mr. Rony Volet, Senator, quite frankly, I don’t know what to tell you, LaCroix had a warrant."