Mongoose Gang

The Mongoose Gang was a private army or militia which operated from 1970 to 1979 under the control of Sir Eric Gairy, the Premier and later Prime Minister of Grenada, and head of the Grenada United Labour Party.

Officially, Mongoose Gang members were called Special Reserve Police (S.R.P.) or Volunteer Constables. Therefore, the terms "police aides" and "Mongoose Gang" were sometimes used synonymously and interchangeably; although it should be added that the names of certain persons were unmistakably identified as members of the Mongoose Gang as distinct from also being police aides. At the 1975 Duffus Commission of Inquiry into the Breakdown of Law & Order, and Police Brutality in Grenada, Nugent David, a former Commissioner of Police, confirmed that a group of men known as the Mongoose Gang were among the police aides. To his knowledge, Moslyn Bishop and his brother Willie Bishop were reputedly leaders of the gang.

According to David the police aides were under his jurisdiction because they assisted the police with their duties although they were not recruited normally as policemen who were required to undergo tests for educational and physical fitness; but they were paid through the office of the Commissioner. David said he did not know how or by whom the recruitment of police aides was done except that he knew the recruitment took place in St. George's and that after he assumed the post of acting commissioner of Police he heard from policemen that the men were selected by the Premier, Eric Gairy. As he understood the functions of the police aides, their main duties were guard duties and at times they assisted the police in searches, but they were subject to no discipline or control similar to that of the Police Force nor were any regulations ever made with respect to them. He added that in his knowledge none of the police aides was issued with firearms although he knew that some of them possessed and carried firearms on guard duty.

The Mongoose Gang was responsible for silencing critics, breaking up demonstrations and murdering opponents of the Gairy regime, including Rupert Bishop, the father of Maurice Bishop in January 1974. Maurice Bishop himself was beaten by members of the Mongoose Gang two months previously, in November 1973, and jailed. The violence of the Mongoose Gang and the Grenadian police became a more important factor than the state of the economy in generating unrest.

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