The unnatural death of former soldier Pablo Kinch is still being investigated by police.
That assurance has been given by police public relations officer Inspector Rodney Inniss amid speculation that the case was being swept under the rug.
Kinch, a former Lance Corporal in the Barbados Defence Force (BDF) was shot in the right sternum on April 6 on the compound of the District ‘A’ Police Station.
Despite efforts to resuscitate him he died soon after.
Inniss maintained that even though a law enforcement officer had lost his life no special treatment was being given to anyone regarding the case.
He told Barbados TODAY police were still conducting their investigations with the same vigour as if a civilian had been involved.
“Whenever we have matters to investigate we investigate them. We investigate all matters and an unnatural death is the most serious matter that you can have, a death of an individual, and we carry out our investigations as thoroughly as we can within the circumstances,” Inniss said.
The PRO acknowledged that sometimes, especially in cases such as these, the public tended to be quite harsh on police.
However, he said the RBPF could not allow those opinions to fashion their response.
“We cannot worry too much about public opinion because the public will usually have their own opinion on things. What we can say is that it is a matter that is still ongoing, the investigation is still going on.
“Obviously, we can’t comment on an investigation that is still ongoing, but the public will always draw conclusions because they don’t know a lot of the things that we would know so, therefore, they would form their own opinion,” Inniss said.
“We can’t report to newspapers and to other places in the middle of an investigation because that wouldn’t be too prudent. At the end of the day, the same public and the same newspapers will chastise us for botching an investigation.”
Preliminary investigations indicated that Kinch and three colleagues from the BDF had just returned from a joint patrol with police officers, and were awaiting transportation back to their base when the incident occurred.
An earlier press release from police also indicated that Lance Corporal Grandison, Private Gill and Private Brathwaite were at the base of the police’s Tactical Response Unit at the police station when a weapon was discharged.
Assistant Superintendent of Police David Wiltshire of the Criminal Investigations Division has been assigned to investigate the matter. randybennett@barbadostoday.bb
