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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

86 per cent rise in police killings

by

Radhica De Silva
1702 days ago
20200629
PCA chairman David West

PCA chairman David West

rad­hi­ca.sookaj@Guardian.co.tt

The num­ber of peo­ple killed by po­lice in the last year has risen by 86 per cent, a fig­ure that is of con­cern to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA).

For this year, 43 peo­ple have al­ready been killed by the po­lice, the ma­jor­i­ty be­ing Afro-Trinida­di­ans.

Trends show the killings have oc­curred pri­mar­i­ly in the North East­ern Di­vi­sion and stemmed from 32 shoot­ing in­ci­dents be­tween Jan­u­ary to June.

There have been mul­ti­ple killings aris­ing out of sin­gle in­ci­dents, such as the one which oc­curred on Fri­day in­volv­ing Joel Ja­cob, Is­rael Clin­ton and Noel Di­a­mond, all of whom were shot dead by of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch.

Sta­tis­tics ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia show the 86 per cent in­creased in po­lice-re­lat­ed killings for this year com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year.

The sta­tis­tics al­so show a 60 per cent in­crease in po­lice-re­lat­ed killings be­tween 2018 and 2019.

This three-year rise in po­lice-re­lat­ed deaths has been of con­cern to the di­rec­tor of the PCA David West.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, West said the PCA was con­cerned with every po­lice-in­volved fa­tal and non-fa­tal shoot­ing.

Police officers at the scene of the police involved shooting in 2nd Caledonia, Morvant on Saturday.

Police officers at the scene of the police involved shooting in 2nd Caledonia, Morvant on Saturday.

ANISTO ALVES

“There is a stand­ing pol­i­cy since I as­sumed di­rec­tor­ship of the PCA that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ini­ti­at­ed in­to every po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing fa­tal and non-fa­tal. To date, there have been 32 in­ci­dents of po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings. Out of those 32 in­ci­dents, there have been 43 vic­tims,” he said.

Asked whether he was con­cerned about pos­si­ble cov­er-ups, West as­sured that full, fair and thor­ough in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing con­duct­ed in­to all re­port­ed in­ci­dents of al­leged po­lice mis­con­duct.

“The PCA is al­so con­scious that we do not pre-empt the out­come of these in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Our in­quiries look at all the cir­cum­stances and whether the use of force by of­fi­cers was jus­ti­fied and pro­por­tion­ate in each of these in­stances. Up­on the con­clu­sion of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the au­thor­i­ty makes an as­sess­ment and forms an opin­ion as to whether or not the sub­ject mat­ter of the com­plaint has been sub­stan­ti­at­ed,” he said.

Un­der Sec­tion 44 (2) of the PCA Act, the Au­thor­i­ty would then rec­om­mend whether con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to pros­e­cute any per­son for a crim­i­nal of­fence.

“The rec­om­men­da­tion is then for­ward­ed to the DPP and to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion,” he said.

Asked whether he saw the video show­ing the Mor­vant shoot­ing, West said, “The PCA is aware of the video that has been cir­cu­lat­ing in so­cial me­dia. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been ini­ti­at­ed. The mat­ter will be ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed and up­on con­clu­sion, if war­rant­ed rec­om­men­da­tions will be made to the rel­e­vant bod­ies.”

Asked what could be done to en­sure that law and or­der are fol­lowed at all times by po­lice of­fi­cers, West said, “The ‘use of force’ pol­i­cy of any po­lice ser­vice is an es­sen­tial tool in help­ing of­fi­cers re­spond to po­ten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous and chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions. This, how­ev­er, must be rea­son­able, ap­pro­pri­ate and pro­por­tion­ate.”

He not­ed that law en­force­ment of­fi­cers should, as far as prac­ti­ca­ble, ap­ply non-vi­o­lent means be­fore re­sort­ing to us­ing force when car­ry­ing out their du­ties.

“In the event that they must re­sort to force, on­ly the min­i­mum force nec­es­sary to achieve the re­quired ob­jec­tive ought to be em­ployed. This is why the PCA has been ad­vo­cat­ing for the use of tasers as a means of a non-lethal weapon. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, this is why the PCA pro­motes the use of body-worn cam­eras (BWCs) and ve­hi­cle dash cam­eras,” he added.

He not­ed that the use of body cam­eras was an im­por­tant tool “with the po­ten­tial to en­hance trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty and to en­gen­der greater trust in po­lice of­fi­cers.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist: It’s eco­nom­ic hard­ship

Mean­while, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said eco­nom­ic pres­sures could have con­tributed to the in­crease in po­lice-re­lat­ed killings.

“As you know many peo­ple lose their jobs and there is a lot of eco­nom­ic hard­ship. We have lots of suf­fer­ing with­in the pop­u­la­tion and what this trans­lates to is high­er lev­els of crime and ag­gres­sion. If that hap­pens you will find a high­er lev­el of con­fronta­tion be­tween the po­lice and cit­i­zens so one of the un­for­tu­nate con­se­quences of this could be a high­er lev­el of po­lice killings,” Seep­er­sad said.

He ex­plained that the com­mis­sion­er’s pol­i­cy of one shot one kill could have em­bold­ened of­fi­cers.

“There was a time that he (CoP) used the phrase, one-shot one kill but we must stay away from that type of lan­guage. It en­cour­ages ag­gres­sion and that is not what the po­lice ser­vice is about. There are lots of good of­fi­cers out there who pro­tect and serve but at the same time, giv­en the na­ture of po­lice work, they could de­vel­op an ag­gres­sive stance in deal­ing with the pub­lic.

“This type of ag­gres­sion could be en­cour­aged by a per­son in au­thor­i­ty and it could re­sult in high­er lev­els of ag­gres­sion among po­lice of­fi­cers,” he said.

Asked whether he was con­cerned about pos­si­ble cov­er-ups, Seep­er­sad said, “We have to trust that the mech­a­nisms that are in place to in­ves­ti­gate sit­u­a­tions, ac­tu­al­ly work.”

Criminologist Dr Randy Seepersad

Criminologist Dr Randy Seepersad

He not­ed that cu­mu­la­tive­ly the po­lice could have had thou­sands of en­coun­ters with mem­bers of the pub­lic and hav­ing 30-plus po­lice-re­lat­ed deaths sig­ni­fy that the po­lice were heed­ing the call by Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith to ex­er­cise wis­dom and dis­cre­tion in their deal­ings with the pub­lic.

He not­ed that T&T was still far ahead when com­pared to Caribbean neigh­bours, not­ing that apart from Ja­maica and Guyana, T&T was the on­ly Caribbean coun­try that had in­de­pen­dent over­sight via the PCA, in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Seep­er­sad al­so said even though the TTPS had a use of force pol­i­cy and ad­e­quate train­ing for of­fi­cers, this will not al­ways be fol­lowed.

“There is no amount of train­ing that will re­al­ly pre­pare them for the re­al­i­ties and you don’t know if an of­fi­cer might be trig­ger-hap­py, don’t know if they might be anx­ious, they might be scared dur­ing an en­counter and they re­act in a way in which the lev­el of force might be ex­ces­sive,” Seep­er­sad said.

Mean­while, Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said the footage cir­cu­lat­ing about the Mor­vant shoot­ings, “does not con­firm or de­ny any­thing.”

“It would, how­ev­er, be used in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I do not act on spec­u­la­tion or per­cep­tion, but ev­i­dence, based on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The TTPS is in­ves­ti­gat­ing as we do with all po­lice-re­lat­ed shoot­ings. I am al­so pro­vid­ing all that is re­quired to the PCA in their in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion on this mat­ter. When these in­ves­ti­ga­tions and find­ings are com­plet­ed, I would then act and in­form the pub­lic ac­cord­ing­ly.”


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