Fran­cis Joseph

Ever since this col­umn start­ed one year ago, I have re­ceived e-mails, calls and let­ters from the pub­lic, ask­ing the same ques­tion–Who was re­al­ly be­hind the plot to get rid of Ran­dolph Bur­roughs? It re­al­ly re­mains a mys­tery as to why Bur­roughs, in the pin­na­cle of his ca­reer as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, was brought crash­ing down. Was it jeal­ousy from with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice or did the gov­ern­ment at the time feel he was "too big for his shoes?"

De­spite what peo­ple may think about "The Fox," they re­al­ly wish that Bur­roughs was around now to deal with the crime prob­lem and the high mur­der rate. It was so iron­ic that Bur­roughs, who led an as­sault against crim­i­nals, and who was re­spon­si­ble for putting many of them in prison, was served a dose of his own med­i­cine. Bur­roughs, who had a quick rise to the top, was dealt a se­ri­ous blow by the George Cham­bers gov­ern­ment. The then gov­ern­ment es­tab­lished a com­mis­sion of en­quiry which lat­er pro­duced the Scott Drug re­port.

Bur­roughs and his dread­ed Fly­ing Squad were on tri­al. Al­le­ga­tions were made against 52 po­lice of­fi­cers. Tes­ti­mo­ny was tak­en in pri­vate be­fore the then chair­man the late Jus­tice Garvin Scott. Wit­ness­es and un­der­world char­ac­ters gave ev­i­dence against po­lice of­fi­cers, most­ly mem­bers of the Fly­ing Squad.

The se­cret tes­ti­mo­ny al­so brought down Bur­roughs, a man who had put his life on the line and who has been cred­it­ed with deal­ing with many crim­i­nals, even though many did not agree with his meth­ods.

Rise and Fall

No one could for­get the job Bur­roughs and his men did when the coun­try was threat­ened by mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Union of Free­dom Fight­ers (NUFF) in 1973. No one could for­get how Bur­roughs and his men went af­ter the guer­ril­la fight­ers. These NUFF mem­bers were threat­en­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of the coun­try, they were rob­bing banks and shoot­ing up the place. They had the coun­try in fear, and at one time, the then Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams threat­ened to flee the coun­try. Bur­roughs took on the job and, who did not get killed, end­ed up bad­ly wound­ed. Very few sur­vived the as­sault from the Fly­ing Squad. In 1976, Bur­roughs, as as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er, was at the cen­tre of an in­ter­na­tion­al in­ci­dent. Af­ter the Cubana Air­lines crash off Bar­ba­dos, Bur­roughs nailed the sus­pects, Jose Vasquez Gar­cia, and Fred­dy Lu­go at the Hol­i­day Inn, Port-of-Spain.

Af­ter a bril­liant ca­reer, some­one felt that this man was more pow­er­ful than the prime min­is­ter. There was a two-prong at­tack on Bur­roughs. First­ly, he was charged with con­spir­a­cy to traf­fic co­caine at Car­li Bay, Cou­va. The State took the ev­i­dence of a no­to­ri­ous crim­i­nal, Cuth­bert "Scot­ty" Charles, to say that he was present when Bur­roughs was at Car­li Bay, of­fload­ing co­caine. It came as no sur­prise that Bur­roughs was cleared of that charge. Not sat­is­fied with the not-guilty ver­dict, the State moved against Bur­roughs again. He was charged with con­spir­a­cy to mur­der two want­ed men on the La­dy Young Road, Mor­vant. He was com­mit­ted to stand tri­al, but the case fell apart be­fore Jus­tice Jean Per­manand in the Port-of-Spain High Court in 1987.

Died of a Bro­ken Heart

Al­though he was ac­quit­ted, his cred­i­bil­i­ty was in sham­bles and he re­tired ear­ly from the Po­lice Ser­vice. It is said that Bur­roughs died of a bro­ken heart on Oc­to­ber 9, 1996, over the "un­grate­ful treat­ment" he got from a coun­try he risked his life for. Since his ear­ly re­tire­ment, Bur­roughs sat at his Pinewood Gar­dens, Pe­tit Val­ley, home, dai­ly, speak­ing about the plot to get him off the job. He used to call names, some of them are dead while oth­ers are still alive. Bur­roughs was con­vinced that a cer­tain man, still alive to­day, was be­hind the move to get rid of him. All mem­bers of the Fly­ing Squad were re­called to du­ty more than two years lat­er. Some took ear­ly re­tire­ment, oth­ers worked un­til the re­tire­ment age and two achieved the rank of As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

There were al­le­ga­tions years ago that ex­e­cut­ed mur­der­er Dole Chadee had po­lice of­fi­cers on his pay­roll, one of the rea­sons as to why he was nev­er caught with co­caine. There was one in­stance when po­lice said they seized co­caine from in­side a wash­ing ma­chine at Chadee's Pi­paro home. But af­ter Chadee was ex­e­cut­ed, his wife Chan­dra was freed in the San Fer­nan­do High Court by Jus­tice An­tho­ny Lucky. Chadee was con­sid­ered a ma­jor play­er in the drug world, but he was nev­er caught with co­caine. He was want­ed by the Amer­i­can au­thor­i­ties, but he was nev­er ex­tra­dit­ed. Al­le­ga­tions were made that some very se­nior of­fi­cers used to tip off Chadee when a raid was go­ing to take place at his Pi­paro man­sion. Chadee had a close con­nec­tion at the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion in the 1980s. That con­nec­tion, ac­cord­ing to al­le­ga­tions, did his bid­ding for him, even to the point where a main wit­ness was killed be­fore a tri­al.

Some say Chadee was re­lat­ed to Bur­roughs in some way and that is why he was pro­tect­ed for a long time. Af­ter Bur­roughs' demise, Chadee was ar­rest­ed and charged three times for mur­der but was ac­quit­ted each time be­cause the main wit­ness was killed. One of these wit­ness­es was Charles. Bur­roughs was very me­dia-friend­ly and a no-non­sense man. T&T was safe dur­ing Bur­roughs' days. There is the cry on the streets that there should be an­oth­er Bur­roughs-type leader in the Po­lice Ser­vice. But be­fore that can hap­pen, there must be a com­mit­ted per­son to take on the crim­i­nals.