COLA comes out support of Convicted Cop, Gino Peck

Police officer Gino Peck will be sentenced on Friday and his attorney Simeon Sampson is preparing to immediately mount an appeal to his sentence for ammunition offenses. Peck has the support of the rank and file of the police department which went as far on Wednesday to publicly say that it will be assisting with legal fees for the appeal. But the veteran police officer today picked up support from another quarter. COLA, Citizens Organized for Liberty through Action (COLA) has been advocating for a change in the gun laws. COLA says that Peck is the latest example of the double standard practiced by the authorities and that from start to finish, the pursuit of Corporal Peck by the Gang Suppression Unit (GSU) bears the hallmarks of vindictiveness. It also demands urgent action from the DPP in the case of Reynaldo Verde who was allegedly found in possession of a firearm but released.

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Delroy Herrera, Activist

Delroy Herrera

“This is one of the most recent incidents that had happened using the gun law to vindicate your results and stuff like that because of your personal attacks and stuff like that. What we have done is that we have brought it up to the lawyers and he told us that this is one of the fights that fall under our cases since we are also looking at the gun law. Mr. Peck; I know Mr. Peck not on a personal basis, but when I was teaching; teacher to parent and Mr. Peck has also stood out as an individual. Even if you check the records Mr. Peck has no other conviction that he had to get discipline or anything like that. Mr. Peck da wahn humble individual, so we decided you know we need to do something come out and make this known that we are not standing up for the police department any more the rank and file,  the D.P.P.s office and stuff using this law to actually get or become pressured into doing something of a personal. With Corporal Peck’s case from the sources, inside sources in the police department, and the public as well, foul play was cried. And we had looked into it and what we have heard is that they tried all kind of way to get this officer to be prosecuted not through the tribunal but through the court. It’s a Personal attack on the officer and that’s what made us came up and said you know what; we need to do something and assist. Yes the law is suppose to be measured across the playing field however when it is measured across the playing field for personal reasons then it’s a problem.  We decided unanimously that there is a problem between that D.P.P. office and the police department office and the GSU office and we basically want to ask the commissioner of police to have an ethics committee going and see what’s the problem and trying to diffuse the problem other than using the problem to actually make conviction of certain people on certain personal attacks. What COLA along with me and Mr. Russell Roberts; what we did yesterday, first of all that we went back to our lawyers with certain information and we had a meeting and one of the thing that we discussed was the case on Mister Peck and the lawyers have decide as well as ourselves. We will be lending our support via assisting the family with a pro bono in the appeals process if the family needs to.”

COLA is also monitoring the case of Darrell Henry, the Belize City youth who was re-arrested and charged by the GSU and held without bail until last week.