Remembering Chief Supt. Ormond Briggs

Thu, Aug 11th 2011, 08:42 AM

Dear Editor,

Many people may not recall Ormond Briggs, who worked for many years in the Criminal Investigation Department and eventually became its leader.
Of course, police officers in his time should remember him for his leadership in discipline, integrity and efficiency on the ground floor of the C.I.D.
Briggs was one of the great Stanley Moir team members in the C.I.D. who was able to accomplish so much with so little.
That team consisted of detectives such as Louis Hemmings, Anthony McDonald Fields, Milan Gittens, Fletcher Johnson, Courtney Strachan, Eastmond Hercules, Arthur Yearwood and youngsters Garth Johnson, Basil Dean, Douglas Hanna, the Bullards, Garbo Saunders and others I cannot recall.
The supervision, direction and training imposed by Stanley Moir improved the performance of the C.I.D during that era.  Moir was very proactive.
Ormand Briggs, a former 800-meter runner on the police track team was the man on the ground floor who provided the on-the-job training and directed investigations.
He also led interrogations and accompanied his men in the search for criminals.
I was then the senior detective working between Moir and the general staff.  Briggs was the man who was getting the work done.
Without any fuss, or much talk he successfully took on the leadership role.
His accomplishments as a leader were due to his ability to win the trust, respect and admiration of all of us.  He knew that being a leader was not a decision he could make on his own, but rather it is a decision that only others can make for you, and you are only the leader when others seek to follow you.
Briggs knew that holding the position of high office is no guarantee that you are a leader of anybody. It is expected of you when you are in such a position but you must first win the trust of those around you before you can become their leader.
His work in the C.I.D. as a detective was brilliant.  He was commended on several occasions for his accomplishments.
The training of the detectives in the skills of investigation is his legacy.  He had what many of us called a "photographic memory".
There was the kidnapping of a bank manager's daughter in Freeport.  I was sent to Freeport with a team of Nassau detectives.  We joined Briggs in the Freeport C.I.D. where he was in charge.  After days of intensive inquiries we were seated in the office discussing progress.  We had made no progress.  Briggs was looking at the ransom note presented.  He recalled that a former detective in his office spelled a word incorrectly as written on the ransom note.  Case solved.
The former detective and a serving officer were arrested and eventually convicted of the crime.
There was a period when we were having rapes of several young women in the eastern district in Nassau.  Extra patrols were implemented and intensive inquiries pursued.
Briggs was visiting Nassau from his office in Freeport and was present during the morning briefings in the C.I.D.  We were talking about the rapes and the attack on the wife of a U.S. Embassy official in their residence on East Bay Street, which was the most recent.
Briggs asked me if I recalled similar crimes being committed in Freeport about 10 years before when we worked together there and a man, who was called "the man with the long gun" was arrested and convicted.
He recalled that the man was sentenced to 10 years.
I immediately called the prison and learned that the man had been released.  Briggs had even recalled the man's name.  The man was eventually arrested as a suspect and identified by all of the women raped.
It was an era when we relied on reliable informants in the communities who trusted us.  It was an era when we did not have the accommodation, communication, transportation and the human resources. We were street smart and had patience, courage, remarkable instincts, dedication and worked long hours when success was apparent.
We will all remember Ormand Briggs, the Barbadian who never lost his accent.
May he rest in peace.
 
Yours, etc.,
Paul Thompson

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