“We Are Being Treated Like Dogs”: PWA Chair Demands Risk Allowance After Nearly a Decade, Reveals Three Officers Shot Within a Year

Police Welfare Association Chairman Virlica Chatham has delivered one of the most damning assessments of how the government treats its law enforcement officers in recent memory — telling the nation that police are “being treated like dogs” and revealing that three officers were shot at within a single year, while a nearly decade-old demand for a risk allowance remains unanswered.

“We Are Being Treated Like Dogs”

Chatham’s frustration, expressed during an interview with Observer Media, was raw and unsparing. “We feel as if we’re being treated like dogs,” she said. “We are being treated like dogs.”

The statement came from the head of the body that represents the welfare of every rank-and-file officer in the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda — and it was not made lightly. It reflects, Chatham said, years of advocacy that has been met with silence, indifference, and a failure by the authorities to recognise the dangers officers face every day.

Three Officers Shot in One Year

Chatham revealed the extent of the violence officers have endured in recent months. “As recently as within a year, three of our officers were shot at,” she said. “One, as we all know, had his leg amputated. Another was saved by a cassie tree. And there is another who had his hand injured by gunshots. So that is just within a year, and there are so many more stories.”

The disclosure that one officer lost a leg, another survived only because a tree absorbed a bullet, and a third sustained gunshot wounds to his hand — all within twelve months — paints a picture of a police force whose members face life-threatening violence on a regular basis while receiving no compensation that acknowledges that reality.

Risk Allowance Demanded Since 2017 — Still Nothing

Officers currently receive a duty allowance, which is intended to cover overtime. There is no separate payment recognising the hazards inherent in police work. Chatham said calls for a dedicated risk allowance began in 2017 and have been raised repeatedly in the nine years since. No decision has ever been made.

“They do not have that interest in our well-being,” she said, calling on the authorities to weigh the full picture of what officers endure before determining what they are owed.

The Benjamin Case That Sparked the Sit-In

The renewed push for recognition of officers’ welfare comes in the immediate aftermath of the injury to Senior Sergeant Jeffery Benjamin, who was struck by a Mack truck on Valley Road on July 3. The truck ran over his right leg, and Benjamin was hospitalised at the Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre. Officers feared he could lose the limb without specialised treatment overseas.

The incident triggered a sit-in by nearly 100 officers at police headquarters on American Road on July 9, demanding that the government arrange an emergency medical evacuation. Officers contrasted the delay in Benjamin’s case with the speed at which a former Member of Parliament was provided with two air ambulances for a condition that ultimately proved to be far less serious.

The PWA subsequently confirmed that arrangements have been secured for Benjamin to be flown to Southern Medical Services in Trinidad and Tobago for treatment, with the process awaiting only confirmation of an aircraft.

A Force Asked to Give Everything — While Receiving Almost Nothing

The timing of Chatham’s remarks carries additional weight given what the Royal Police Force is simultaneously being asked to do. The country has just completed Exercise STRONGHOLD — a three-day island-wide security drill in preparation for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November, at which the police will be expected to provide security for heads of government from across the 56-nation Commonwealth and an anticipated state visit by His Majesty King Charles III.

Officers who are being asked to protect a king are telling the nation they feel treated like dogs. Officers who have been shot at, who have had limbs amputated, who have survived only because of the placement of a tree, are being told there is no risk allowance for the work they do.

Bureaucratic Layers Blocking Progress

Chatham acknowledged that the Police Service Commission may not be fully aware of the extent of officers’ concerns, explaining that representations from the rank and file are typically routed through the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General rather than directly to the Commission.

“So we don’t necessarily go to the Police Service Commission,” she said, adding that while there is scope for direct engagement with the Commission in the future, the layered bureaucratic process has itself become an obstacle. “There’s a chance. We probably can speak with them. That’s too many people to go through,” she said.

The Police Welfare Association said it will continue pressing for the establishment of a risk allowance and for greater recognition of the dangers officers face. For the men and women of the Royal Police Force — who put on their uniforms every morning knowing that three of their colleagues were shot in a single year and that the government has spent nine years declining to compensate them for the risk — Chatham’s words need no elaboration.

They know exactly what she means.