Kali­fa Clyne

Since De­cem­ber 29, 2010, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has re­ceived a to­tal of 2,139 com­plaints against po­lice of­fi­cers.

And ac­cord­ing to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, be­tween 2012 and 2016 the Po­lice Ser­vice sus­pend­ed over 150 of­fi­cers from the rank of con­sta­ble to as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er, while 63 of­fi­cers are cur­rent­ly fac­ing charges be­fore the court.

Of the 2139 com­plaints be­fore the PCA, 1,279 are still be­ing ac­tive­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed, 254 of those of­fi­cers are cur­rent­ly fac­ing le­gal ac­tion be­fore the courts, and 606 in­ves­ti­ga­tions have been com­plet­ed. Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the PCA, be­tween Oc­to­ber 1, 2014, and Sep­tem­ber 30, 2015, there were 230 al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal of­fences, and 442 al­le­ga­tions of dis­ci­pli­nary of­fences. A to­tal of 674 of­fences were iden­ti­fied.

Head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the Po­lice Ser­vice, Ellen Lewis, said the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB), which has in­ter­nal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing lev­elled against of­fi­cers, had been man­dat­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to pur­sue mat­ters in­volv­ing of­fi­cers with­out fear or favour. "What the pub­lic had been wit­ness to of late is the PSB dis­charg­ing its du­ty. The pub­lic there­fore ought to be com­fort­ed by the pur­pose­ful ac­tion of the CoP to purge the ser­vice of rogue el­e­ments as we strive to earn the pub­lic's trust and im­prove po­lice le­git­i­ma­cy."

While the fig­ures rep­re­sent a po­ten­tial de­crease of bad cops in the ser­vice, con­fi­dence and trust in po­lice of­fi­cers re­main low at a time when the pop­u­la­tion is grap­pling with ris­ing mur­ders and a preva­lence in miss­ing peo­ple, rapes and rob­beries. Cit­i­zens ques­tion the com­pe­tence and in­tegri­ty of of­fi­cers al­most dai­ly, based on fre­quent pub­lic com­plaints.

On Oc­to­ber 5, Jeanette Ram­sa­hai made a re­port to the PCA re­gard­ing her son Josi­ah and al­le­ga­tions that he was be­ing ha­rassed by a po­lice of­fi­cer.

In the last few lines of the re­port, Ram­sa­hai asked sev­er­al ques­tions. "What should I do? Should I wait and have to bury my son?" On No­vem­ber 18, Ram­sa­hai got her an­swer.

Her son Josi­ah was shot, in what po­lice claimed was a shoot-out with of­fi­cers. She buried him days lat­er.

On Oc­to­ber 20, Adele Gilbert was killed in an al­leged shoot-out with of­fi­cers in San Fer­nan­do but wit­ness­es claim that Gilbert had no gun.

Po­lice have since opened an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. Both Ram­sa­hai and Gilbert's rel­a­tives are claim­ing un­law­ful acts by po­lice of­fi­cers, fur­ther adding to the lack of con­fi­dence in po­lice, who have been charged with rob­bery and SRP's who have abused cit­i­zens.

With po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing ac­cused of and charged with of­fences rang­ing from dan­ger­ous dri­ving and pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na to mon­ey laun­der­ing and mur­der, the pub­lic con­tin­ues to find rea­sons not to trust po­lice of­fi­cers.

Pub­lic jus­ti­fied...but cops are now re­port­ing cops�Seales

"It is un­der­stand­able when trust is shak­en based on cir­cum­stances that meet me­dia at­ten­tion," says Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Michael Seales.

In an in­ter­view last week, Seales said the pub­lic was jus­ti­fied when it came to the is­sue of trust in po­lice of­fi­cers. When those cir­cum­stances (po­lice be­ing charged with crimes) arise, it has a de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fect on the cit­i­zen.

But the pub­lic are not the on­ly ones whose trust are shak­en, he said. "The trust is al­so shak­en of po­lice of­fi­cers who want to do a bet­ter job . It's shak­en be­cause of those po­lice of­fi­cers who com­mit crim­i­nal of­fences," Seales said.

"In most of in­stances and via our own net­work­ing, acts are con­demned and con­sid­ered re­pul­sive."

He said of­fi­cers were, more fre­quent­ly than be­fore, mak­ing their way to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reaus and are "rat­ting out" their col­leagues. Seales said this was the rea­son the pub­lic was see­ing more ar­rests. "That would have come from in­ter­nal sources, Po­lice are blow­ing the whis­tle on oth­er bad po­lice of­fi­cers.

We need to get rid of the bag­gage in 2016 and start 2017 anew."

Over the past two weeks, the Guardian has re­ceived mul­ti­ple queries from the pub­lic re­gard­ing lack of trust in the po­lice, in­clud­ing pleas for help in sit­u­a­tions where cit­i­zens felt they were be­ing ha­rassed by of­fi­cers.

The Guardian di­rect­ed these queries to the PCA which in­ves­ti­gates com­plaints against po­lice of­fi­cers.

BREAK­DOWN OF RE­PORTS RE­CEIVED BY THE PCA

De­cem­ber 29, 2010 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2011 - 255 com­plaints were re­ceived;

Oc­to­ber 1, 2011 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2012 - 340 com­plaints were re­ceived;

Oc­to­ber 1, 2012 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2013 - 470 com­plaints were re­ceived;

Oc­to­ber 1, 2013 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2014 - 491 com­plaints were re­ceived;

Oc­to­ber 1, 2014 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2015 - 321 com­plaints were re­ceived.

AL­LE­GA­TIONS OF DIS­CI­PLI­NARY OF­FENCES

To­tal

Dis­cred­itable Con­duct

191

Ne­glect of Du­ty

108

Un­law­ful/ Un­nec­es­sary Ex­er­cise of Au­thor­i­ty

75

Breach of Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions

34

Cor­rupt Prac­tice

32

Breach of Con­fi­dence

1

Op­pres­sive Con­duct

1

To­tal

442

AL­LE­GA­TIONS OF CRIM­I­NAL OF­FENCES

To­tal num­ber of al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal of­fences for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1, 2014, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2015.

To­tal

Fa­tal Shoot­ing

7

Non-fa­tal Shoot­ing

4

Caus­ing Death by Dan­ger­ous Dri­ving

1

Mur­der

7

As­sault

90

As­sault occ. Ac­tu­al Bod­i­ly Harm

4

Wound­ing with in­tent to do Griev­ous bod­i­ly harm

3

As­sault and Bat­tery

2

Com­mon As­sault

9

Ha­rass­ment

18

Threat

7

Killing or Wound­ing An­i­mals

3

Mon­ey Laun­der­ing

1

Rape

1

In­de­cent As­sault

1

In­cest

1

Griev­ous Sex­u­al As­sault

1

Sex­u­al Ha­rass­ment

1

Se­ri­ous In­de­cen­cy

1

Un­law­ful and un­nec­es­sary use of force

14

Lar­ce­ny and Re­lat­ed Of­fences

16

Ma­li­cious Dam­age

11

Tres­pass and Un­law­ful En­try

1

Pos­ses­sion of Mar­i­jua­na

1

Per­vert­ing Course of Jus­tice

2

Wrong­ful Ar­rest

1

Shoot­ing with In­tent

5

Mis­be­hav­iour in Pub­lic Of­fice

11

Dan­ger­ous Dri­ving

1

Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence

2

Use of Ob­scene Lan­guage

4

To­tal

230