The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) lost an­oth­er of­fi­cer to COVID-19 on Mon­day.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia this was the sixth po­lice of­fi­cer who died from the virus.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the Ex­ec­u­tive of the TTPS ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues of Sgt Gary Har­vey who died at 6.30 am on May 31, while un­der­go­ing treat­ment at the Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal, Pointe-à-Pierre.

Sgt Har­vey was vi­su­al­ly im­paired but de­spite this, was pro­mot­ed and con­tin­ued to serve as an ac­tive po­lice of­fi­cer.

The TTPS said Sgt Har­vey, who had over 25 years of ser­vice, was last as­signed to the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU).

How­ev­er, he spent most of his polic­ing ca­reer at the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HBI).

He leaves to mourn his wife and daugh­ter.

His pass­ing is said to have left his im­me­di­ate col­leagues dis­traught.

The TTPS said one of Sgt Har­vey’s col­leagues In­sp Hezron Lynch, who worked very close­ly with him at HBI since 2005, de­scribed him as an of­fi­cer who was ex­treme­ly ded­i­cat­ed and was a peo­ple-ori­ent­ed law en­force­ment of­fi­cer.

In­sp Lynch said, “Since I start­ed work­ing with Sgt Har­vey back in 2005, he has al­ways been a gem, a true gen­tle­man and a very, very peo­ple-ori­ent­ed per­son. I say that with­out any de­gree of reser­va­tion.”

“He al­ways had his col­leagues’ backs and we will al­ways re­mem­ber him as a very warm and per­sis­tent of­fi­cer,” In­sp Lynch added.

In­sp Lynch added that though Sgt Har­vey was vi­su­al­ly im­paired over the last few years, “he re­mained stead­fast and per­se­vered in his quest in achiev­ing ex­cel­lence”.

He ex­plained, “Sgt Har­vey, though blind, un­der­went his In­spec­tor pro­mo­tion in­ter­view and man­aged to rank 79th on the mer­it list out of 504 of­fi­cers,” he said.

“That goes to show the type of of­fi­cer he was!”

Just last week To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of­fi­cer Glen­roy Daniel died from the virus.

Sgt Har­vey is the sixth of­fi­cer to die from COVID.

There are 260 po­lice of­fi­cers COVID-pos­i­tive, with over 1,000 in quar­an­tine.