Rhon­dor Dowlat

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has signed a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar deal with a firm to equip all po­lice of­fi­cers with some of the lat­est and hi-tech guns to even the play­ing field against the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

Two of the main guns to be pur­chased in­clude the SIG PRO and the SIG Sauer P226 Pis­tol. The lat­ter–SIG Sauer P226 Pis­tol–will be as­signed to every "or­di­nary" po­lice of­fi­cer in the TTPS, while the SIG PRO will be as­signed to of­fi­cers in the Spe­cial Branch Unit, the T&T Guardian has been told.

Ac­cord­ing to a source who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, the new guns will re­place the present ones be­ing used in the ser­vice, which in­clude the Smith and Wes­son and M&P 9mm, which is sim­i­lar to the Glock pis­tol.

The source added that Spe­cial Branch had al­ready been is­sued with the new SIG PRO firearms.

"That par­tic­u­lar weapon is used by counter-ter­ror­ism spe­cial­ist firearms of­fi­cers, hence the rea­son it was as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch Unit," the source said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Anand Rame­sar said the ac­qui­si­tion of new guns for of­fi­cers was long over­due.

"The as­so­ci­a­tion has been clam­or­ing for this change long time now and I am giv­ing my to­tal en­dorse­ment and sup­port to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on this move," Rame­sar said.

Rame­sar said he was part of a team that at­tend­ed a demon­stra­tion and ex­hi­bi­tion on the use of the guns last month.

"I be­lieve it was from there every­thing may have hap­pened. The firearms we have now are very much out­dat­ed and what you find is that when it goes de­fec­tive it has to re­main de­fec­tive be­cause the parts of the firearms are not ac­ces­si­ble," he added.

Rame­sar said some of the guns be­ing used by the TTPS date as far back as the ear­ly 1970s.

"These new firearms ap­pear to be su­pe­ri­or to what we have now but in the long term the cost of it will be worth it," he said.

Asked if there were any con­cerns about the dis­pos­al of the firearms which will be re­placed, Rame­sar replied: "There are no con­cerns be­cause we be­lieve that there are suf­fi­cient mech­a­nisms in place to dis­card our firearms."

Asked if there were con­cerns that the "old" firearms would end up on the streets and in the hands of gang mem­bers, he replied: "We are not con­cerned of this ei­ther be­cause we nev­er had a prob­lem with our firearms end­ing up in the wrong hands out there. They all will be de­stroyed prop­er­ly."

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams laughed as he said: "I can­not com­ment on such in­for­ma­tion for the pub­lic out there."

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Carl Al­fon­so said pur­chas­ing the new guns was deemed nec­es­sary to en­hance the ser­vice.

"It is all for ob­vi­ous rea­sons... new as­sets, whether it be arms and ve­hi­cles, it is all in the ef­fort to en­hance the TTPS," Al­fon­so said.

He pledged his con­tin­ued sup­port to the TTPS and promised if giv­en a sec­ond term in of­fice he would en­sure his min­istry gave what­ev­er was need­ed to the TTPS.

"What­ev­er they think they need or want to im­prove the ser­vice they will have my full sup­port," he said.