An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Ju­nior Ben­jamin is ad­vis­ing po­lice of­fi­cers to abide by the ju­di­cial pol­i­cy that pro­hibits them from tak­ing their firearms in­to court un­til such time that a new di­rec­tive is is­sued.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) that the ban had placed of­fi­cers in a vul­ner­a­ble po­si­tion, Ben­jamin said, “The Ju­di­cia­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go made their de­ci­sion, and we will abide by the law.”

How­ev­er, he as­sured that the hi­er­ar­chy of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was ready to sit with the Ju­di­cia­ry to ham­mer out a res­o­lu­tion that all par­ties would be in agree­ment with.

In a mes­sage on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said, “All court mat­ters, and in fact, all ac­cused are not iden­ti­cal; there­fore, the lev­el of risk in­volved will vary on a case-by-case ba­sis.”

He as­sured dis­grun­tled of­fi­cers, “The doors have not been shut re­gard­ing dis­cus­sions fo­cus­ing on mit­i­gat­ing said risks, and I as­sure you that we are mov­ing for­ward to have such dis­cus­sions with the Ju­di­cia­ry so that a work­able, vi­able, and mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial so­lu­tion can be im­ple­ment­ed.”

The DCP re­mind­ed of­fi­cers, “Mem­bers of the TTPS have tak­en an oath to main­tain law and or­der, and with that in mind, I am ad­vis­ing all of­fi­cers to abide by the Ju­di­cia­ry’s pol­i­cy un­til oth­er­wise di­rect­ed.”

Con­firm­ing that all in­struc­tions were sanc­tioned by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, Ben­jamin urged, “I am con­fi­dent that the TTPS and the Ju­di­cia­ry, both crit­i­cal arms of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, can bring a speedy res­o­lu­tion to this mat­ter to the ben­e­fit of all par­ties in­volved.”

In Ju­ly, guards from the Main­te­nance and Train­ing Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS) had cause to block an armed po­lice of­fi­cer from en­ter­ing the Princes Town Ju­di­cial Com­plex with his weapon as it was in con­tra­ven­tion of the Ju­di­cia­ry’s es­tab­lished ban on guns in court.

At the time, of­fi­cials re­mind­ed, “The Ju­di­cia­ry’s pol­i­cy po­si­tion al­so pro­hibits court users and TTPS of­fi­cers from en­ter­ing the court premis­es with a firearm.”

“This po­si­tion on ex­clu­sion of firearms from court build­ings was adopt­ed in Ju­ly 2015, af­ter ex­am­i­na­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al court se­cu­ri­ty prac­tice.”

Re­gard­ing the 2015 ban, TTPSS­WA head Gideon Dick­son on Tues­day re­in­forced their stance to stand firm­ly be­hind of­fi­cers who re­fused to be searched be­fore en­ter­ing any court and asked to sur­ren­der their firearms. Of­fi­cers as­signed to the Video and Au­dio Cen­tre, O’Meara Road, Ari­ma, where the vir­tu­al court is held for the North­ern Dis­trict, have been de­nied en­try in­to the fa­cil­i­ty if they do not com­ply with these or­ders.

Dick­son al­leged this di­rec­tive did not align with the laws of the coun­try. Pro­vi­sions in the Sum­ma­ry Court Act, the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, and the Sup­ple­men­tal Po­lice Act al­low of­fi­cers to be present in court with their firearms. The TTPSS­WA head said the pol­i­cy now be­ing re­in­forced placed of­fi­cers in a di­min­ished po­si­tion.

Ju­di­cia­ry re­sponds

Even as the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues to un­fold, the Ju­di­cia­ry said de­spite the im­por­tant role played by po­lice of­fi­cers in pro­vid­ing pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, “It re­serves the right to reg­u­late ac­cess to all Court premis­es.”

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Ju­di­cia­ry re­mind­ed all users seek­ing to ac­cess build­ings un­der their purview, of the es­tab­lished screen­ing pol­i­cy which took ef­fect in Ju­ly 2015.

They said the pol­i­cy which pro­hibits per­sons in­clud­ing of­fi­cers, from car­ry­ing firearms in­to court – was in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice for court build­ings and is in keep­ing with se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols in many sec­tors across T&T and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, where po­lice of­fi­cers must al­so be screened.

Claim­ing this di­rec­tive had been com­mu­ni­cat­ed to stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, as well as Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice from 2015 to present–the Ju­di­cia­ry said it will con­tin­ue to en­gage in dis­cus­sions with the lead­er­ship of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to en­sure there is a com­mon un­der­stand­ing of this pol­i­cy po­si­tion on the ex­clu­sion of firearms from court build­ings.

Ju­di­cial of­fi­cials claimed that de­spite this pol­i­cy, they have con­tin­ued to en­counter is­sues from cer­tain of­fi­cers, “Whose ac­tions de­lib­er­ate­ly dis­re­gard this pol­i­cy that pro­hibits court users and TTPS of­fi­cers from en­ter­ing the Court premis­es with a firearm.”

The Ju­di­cia­ry said, “Where spe­cial mea­sures ap­ply this is worked out col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly.”

Re­fer­ring to an in­ci­dent on No­vem­ber 6, be­tween a po­lice of­fi­cer and court staff at the O’Meara Ju­di­cial Com­plex in which the of­fi­cer re­fused to com­ply and was re­fused en­try–the in­ci­dent es­ca­lat­ed to the point where the of­fi­cer threat­ened to ar­rest the staff mem­ber.

Of­fi­cials stressed, “The Ju­di­cia­ry’s re­sponse in these cir­cum­stances re­mains fo­cused on safe­guard­ing its em­ploy­ees and court users, who are un­du­ly af­fect­ed.”