Gail Alexan­der

Gary Grif­fith has said he’s al­ready be­gun to be po­lit­i­cal–and has promised to re­veal, “in due course,” al­leged “bla­tant po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence” in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice by politi­cians he’d seen.

Grif­fith lashed out on Wednes­day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, at a PNM meet­ing on Mon­day night in San Fer­nan­do, men­tioned the for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er and po­lice is­sues.

The Prime Min­is­ter la­belled the for­mer com­mis­sion­er as a “de­ranged imp.”

Grif­fith re­tort­ed, “Try again Kei­th – you kept putting your nose in po­lice busi­ness.

“The first sign of dic­ta­tor­ship in a coun­try is when a gov­ern­ment tries to con­trol and di­rect the po­lice. The Prime Min­is­ter, in a trem­bling tone, stat­ed I’d be po­lit­i­cal soon. No Kei­th.

“Not soon. It’s al­ready be­gun.”

He slammed Row­ley’s com­ments as “a fee­ble ex­cuse re­gard­ing a Gov­ern­ment di­rec­tive of $35 mil­lion-plus, be­ing slipped in­to TTPS’ bud­get to pro­vide le­gal fees for spe­cif­ic po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

Grif­fith al­leged, “What’s un­ac­cept­able is if the Gov­ern­ment specif­i­cal­ly se­lects the at­tor­neys, de­cide the cost and ne­go­ti­a­tion of con­tract and then im­pose it on the po­lice by telling them who to hire, what you would pay them and to have the au­dac­i­ty of se­lect­ing the spe­cif­ic cas­es that would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed, up­on which the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er is then noth­ing more than a rub­ber stamp, as the Gov­ern­ment is now pri­ori­tis­ing crim­i­nal cas­es and the po­lice are forced to do as re­quired, as these are the funds re­leased that can on­ly be used for what is di­rect­ed by the Gov­ern­ment.

“This is bla­tant Gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence in­to hand-pick­ing and di­rect­ing po­lice on what cas­es must be deemed pri­or­i­ty.”

Grif­fith claimed when “Row­ley tries to mis­lead the pub­lic with his red her­rings of him be­ing dis­ap­point­ed in me, it was Row­ley’s self­ish view was what mat­tered, as he was up­set I wasn’t go­ing to be used as a pup­pet and have my strings pulled by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and use po­lice to do their bid­ding.”

“This in­ci­dent is one of dozens of sim­i­lar con­cerns I had as po­lice com­mis­sion­er, see­ing bla­tant po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in­to TTPS by politi­cians, that will be re­vealed in due course.”

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