Georgetown, Guyana – November 1, 2026: The opposition Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) has issued a formal call for Guyana’s police force to immediately halt its internal investigation into the recent in-custody death of 32-year-old labourer Gavin Kennard Douglas, and instead transfer oversight of the case to a magistrate-powered coroner’s inquest to guarantee full impartiality. Douglas, a resident of Crane Housing Scheme on West Coast Demerara, was taken into custody on Saturday, October 31, 2026, as part of a probe into an alleged armed robbery that took place three days prior at New Road, Vreed-en-Hoop. According to official police statements, he was escorted to the Vreed-en-Hoop police station at 11:36 a.m., became aggressive while being placed in a holding cell roughly 24 minutes later, and was physically restrained by on-duty officers. During a routine cell check at 12:45 p.m., staff found Douglas foaming at the mouth, and he was pronounced dead shortly after being rushed to the West Demerara Regional Hospital for emergency care. FGM leader Amanza Walton-Desir, a practicing attorney, laid out a series of non-negotiable demands in a Sunday night statement, including mandatory immediate securing of all Vreed-en-Hoop station CCTV footage, official lockup logs and administrative diaries, full access for the Douglas family to an independent pathologist during the upcoming post-mortem, immediate reassignment of the officers involved to non-frontline posts pending probe results, and full public disclosure of all final investigative findings. She emphasized that the full legal onus to account for Douglas’s death rests with the state, not his grieving family, arguing that allowing the Guyana Police Force’s internal Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) to lead the investigation represents a fundamental conflict of interest. As the OPR falls under the same command structure as the officers whose conduct is under scrutiny, Walton-Desir noted that “police investigating police” can never deliver conclusions the public or the Douglas family will trust. She further anchored her demand in national constitutional provisions, citing Article 154A which mandates all state agencies uphold international human rights treaties Guyana has ratified, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – which enshrines the fundamental right to life under Article 6 – and the Convention against Torture, which requires prompt, impartial investigations into all credible allegations of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under Articles 12 and 16. Walton-Desir went on to sharply criticize Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond’s earlier Sunday public remarks, noting that the minister with formal political oversight of the Guyana Police Force failed to announce any concrete, proactive steps to secure evidence, reassign implicated officers, or move the probe outside police control, instead delivering a vague, accountability-evading statement. Adding cross-opposition support for independent oversight, We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) parliamentary representative Dr. Gordon Barker noted that a widely circulated emotional video statement from Douglas’s father, paired with disturbing leaked imagery of the deceased man’s body, has raised deeply troubling unanswered questions that cannot be addressed via internal police processes. Barker warned that any confirmed wrongdoing must result in full, uncompromising legal accountability for all implicated parties, with zero preferential treatment or institutional protection, to prevent a dangerous culture of impunity from taking root in Guyana’s law enforcement bodies. Both opposition figures highlighted that Douglas was legally presumed innocent at the time of his arrest, and the state bore an explicit legal duty to protect his safety and human rights while he was in official custody.