Geisha Kow­lessar

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Op­er­a­tions, Jack Ewats­ki, has come out in strong de­fence of the con­tro­ver­sial light air­craft con­tract­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice and is as­sur­ing the coun­try that the plane will not be used to con­duct covert ac­tiv­i­ties. And whether the de­ci­sion to con­tract the plane could neg­a­tive­ly af­fect his per­for­mance ap­praisal, Ewats­ki said that was up to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to de­cide. In an in­ter­view at his of­fice at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Ewats­ki, when asked if he be­lieved he was be­ing un­fair­ly at­tacked, said: "I recog­nise the fact that some peo­ple would form an opin­ion based on a very lim­it­ed amount of in­for­ma­tion. "I don't op­er­ate that way," he said. "If I form an opin­ion, it is an in­formed opin­ion...it is based on fact-not based on ru­mour, in­nu­en­do or as­sump­tion.

"I can't pre­vent oth­er peo­ple from form­ing an opin­ion based on as­sump­tions, ru­mours or in­nu­en­does." Main­tain­ing that the Po­lice Ser­vice was not on a mis­sion to en­gage in "covert sur­veil­lance" of the cit­i­zens of the coun­try, Ewats­ki said: "This is not about covert sur­veil­lance...This is about sup­port­ing our ground op­er­a­tions, so we are not us­ing those as­sets to spy and to do any­thing in a covert man­ner, quite the con­trary.

"This is where this mis­un­der­stand­ing is, and every­time I hear it be­ing re­ferred to as sur­veil­lance or spy­ing, that isn't the case," he said. He added that he would go all out to cor­rect this mis­con­cep­tion and in­form the gen­er­al pub­lic about the op­er­a­tions of the Po­lice Ser­vice. Ewats­ki said the plane would be very vis­i­ble and the work it would con­duct would be "read­i­ly ac­count­able" to the Gov­ern­ment and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry. "We want peo­ple to know that we have the abil­i­ty and the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of be­ing able to sup­port our ground op­er­a­tions with air op­er­a­tions...to have that sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness from the air is a very ef­fec­tive tool to sup­port our ground op­er­a­tions," he added.

He said the two he­li­copters, for­mer­ly un­der the charge of the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit of T&T, and now in the hands of the Po­lice Ser­vice, had al­so played an in­stru­men­tal role in po­lice op­er­a­tions. "We ar­rest­ed close to 180 peo­ple last year, in op­er­a­tions that our air sup­port unit was in­volved in-those type of op­er­a­tions where they sup­port­ed our ground op­er­a­tions look­ing for in­di­vid­u­als who were ei­ther leav­ing the scene of a crime or at the scene of a crime, as a re­sult of our abil­i­ty to see things from the air much clear­er and much bet­ter than from on the ground," Ewats­ki said. "Law en­force­ment avi­a­tion is sim­i­lar to hav­ing a marked pa­trol ve­hi­cle on the ground," he said. "The air­craft is used, whether it be a he­li­copter or a fixed-wing air­craft, as an­oth­er pa­trol and re­sponse re­source. "It could get to scenes much quick­er than on the ground and it cer­tain­ly has a whole dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive from the air than on the ground." And the light fixed-wing air­craft, he as­sert­ed, had not been used by the Po­lice Ser­vice as part of its Air Sup­port Unit.

"Con­trary to what peo­ple are say­ing, the plane wasn't here last sum­mer...the plane on­ly came in­to the coun­try in Jan­u­ary of this year," Ewats­ki said. "We are right now in a train­ing phase of our of­fi­cers to use this light fixed-wing air­craft. "The plane has not been de­ployed as part of our Air Sup­port Unit at this point in time."

Ques­tioned when the air­craft was ex­pect­ed to be ful­ly func­tion­al, Ewats­ki could not give a spe­cif­ic time pe­ri­od, on­ly adding that op­er­a­tions would com­mence "soon." Ewats­ki and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs have been at the cen­tre of harsh crit­i­cism, in­clud­ing by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy who ac­cused the two of fail­ing to in­form the min­istry about the $902,772 con­tract to a Tacarigua firm for 720 hours of use of the Zenith air­craft for a three-month eval­u­a­tion. Ewats­ki said he had al­ready sub­mit­ted a full re­port to Sandy and had "dis­cus­sions" with him. Ques­tioned on whether he be­lieved it was wrong not to in­form the min­is­ter be­fore the con­tract was award­ed, he said: "I have sub­mit­ted a re­port to the min­is­ter and I have had con­ver­sa­tions with the min­is­ter on this is­sue."

The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, which was al­so giv­en a copy of the re­port, is ex­pect­ed to make a de­ci­sion on the mat­ter. Re­gard­ing whether the plane is­sue had erod­ed his im­age as a se­nior of­fi­cer and could ul­ti­mate­ly af­fect his per­for­mance ap­praisal to be con­duct­ed by the com­mis­sion, Ewats­ki said: "That would be up for the com­mis­sion to de­cide, based on facts, not based on as­sump­tion, not based on ru­mours or in­nu­en­does, but based on facts. "I have been in this busi­ness long enough to know that in a po­si­tion of lead­er­ship, es­pe­cial­ly in a po­lice or­gan­i­sa­tion, that you are con­stant­ly un­der scruti­ny and I have faced scruti­ny in the past and I will con­tin­ue to face that scruti­ny un­til I am no longer in­volved in law en­force­ment," he said.