Ira Math­ur

I was be­mused by the ghoul­ish Hal­loween im­ages that emerged out of Trinidad. Our mim­ic peo­ple putting on scary masks of the dead, a rit­u­al of First World coun­tries.

A grow­ing trend by a mim­ic peo­ple un­aware we are liv­ing in the land of ghoul?

Why not just go on a hunt to find the head of the body that was de­cap­i­tat­ed, or the wounds of the Eng­lish­man and his wife butchered in To­ba­go, or the mur­der of the Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons Mr David Mil­lette? In­stead of teach­ing our chil­dren about our own folk­lore and the sig­nif­i­cance of re­mem­ber­ing the dead, they put on masks of the dead in the tenth most mur­der­ous coun­try in the world.

This lack of self-aware­ness is noth­ing to the ut­ter­ance of the Op­po­si­tion leader who is­sued a state­ment on crime.

"Dr Row­ley has a di­rect du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for is­sues of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, as he is the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

"He must speak, he must act, and he must as­sure the na­tion that ini­tia­tives are be­ing tak­en to bring this cri­sis to an end."

Even the mur­der of Mil­lette has not forced Dr Row­ley in­to say­ing some­thing to a pop­u­la­tion that is quick­ly re­treat­ing in­to a dai­ly life of in­tense fear of crime.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ued:

"The Prime Min­is­ter must end this rou­tine si­lence on crit­i­cal is­sues of im­por­tance to cit­i­zens. Every mur­der is in­tol­er­a­ble, and the Gov­ern­ment is act­ing as if it has no re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go.

"The num­ber of mur­ders es­ca­lat­ed im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the PNM Gov­ern­ment took of­fice, and now ap­pears set to ex­ceed last year's mur­der rate, with the Gov­ern­ment ap­pear­ing clue­less to ad­dress this alarm­ing trend."

I agree that Gov­ern­ment must tack­le crime as a mat­ter of great ur­gency, but sure­ly Bisses­sar doesn't have this short a mem­o­ry or the moral au­thor­i­ty to re­lease that state­ment?

The for­mer prime min­is­ter got rid of the most sin­cere and com­pe­tent po­lice com­mis­sion­er we've had–Cana­da-born T&T Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs–and put Jack Warn­er (await­ing ex­tra­di­tion from T&T to the US to an­swer fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing charges) in charge of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Jack Warn­er mashed up what­ev­er good Gibbs was try­ing to do. That's why we are where we are.

Crime doesn't hap­pen in a day. It cooks slow­ly. Gibbs was lynched by the Per­sad-Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment, used as a scape­goat, and van­quished be­cause he had a plan. The plan meant straight­en­ing out oth­er el­e­ments of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice which the Per­sad-Bissses­sar gov­ern­ment didn't have the guts to tack­le.

Like I said, Gibbs had a plan and it was work­ing. He is a for­eign­er. He aimed for ex­cel­lence. The Po­lice Ser­vice felt threat­ened by the com­mis­sion­er's claim of a whop­ping 25 per cent de­crease in se­ri­ous crime. We not tak­ing that.

Af­ter pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to for­mer com­mis­sion­er Gibbs, ac­cus­ing him of "breach­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions in re­la­tion to the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing project," in March, 2012, I in­ter­viewed Gibbs. He was hold­ing on. He said, "With­out doubt, the things that get thrown at me take away some of the en­er­gy I should be us­ing to fo­cus on the trans­for­ma­tion of the ser­vice. Deal­ing with it doesn't al­low the com­plete con­cen­tra­tion I need to do my job. But my fo­cus hasn't changed. I am here to build up the Po­lice Ser­vice, to help the cit­i­zens in T&T feel safe, and I am not al­low­ing it to dis­tract from our abil­i­ty to keep work­ing on rolling out the 21st Cen­tu­ry po­lice mod­el.

"Since we be­gan rolling out the 21st Cen­tu­ry Polic­ing Ini­tia­tive there has been a re­duc­tion of homi­cides by 20 per cent and se­ri­ous crime in­clud­ing lar­ce­ny in homes and mo­tor ve­hi­cles by 25 per cent."

Sure­ly that was good news?

"The Cab­i­net-ap­proved 21st-Cen­tu­ry Polic­ing Ini­tia­tive re­quired an en­tire par­a­digm shift in the de­liv­ery of polic­ing ser­vices to the na­tion to bring mod­ern, con­tem­po­rary, in­no­v­a­tive polic­ing to T&T. The TTPS de­signed a polic­ing mod­el which re­quires of­fi­cers to po­lice the streets in­stead of sit­ting in po­lice sta­tions; plac­ing of­fi­cers in neigh­bour­hoods and com­mu­ni­ties, pa­trolling and work­ing with res­i­dents to pre­vent crime. Vis­i­bil­i­ty com­bats and pre­vents crime.

"We work on the premise that com­mit­ted, com­pe­tent and car­ing of­fi­cers com­bined with mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy and state-of-the-art equip­ment is cru­cial to the suc­cess of the 21st-Cen­tu­ry Polic­ing Ini­tia­tive.

"My chal­lenge was and re­mains to up­date an ar­cha­ic, in­creas­ing­ly in­ef­fec­tive sys­tem, re­duce crime and vic­tim­i­sa­tion, im­prove road safe­ty, and pro­vide a cit­i­zen-cen­tred Po­lice Ser­vice."

I asked Gibbs if his sys­tem was tough on po­lice of­fi­cers.

"The new de­ploy­ment sys­tem and shift sched­ules no longer build in rest/sleep­ing pe­ri­od. Dor­mi­to­ries have been tak­en out and re­placed with change room fa­cil­i­ty and a qui­et room. This en­sures that of­fi­cers are not sleep­ing in the po­lice sta­tions, but are on the streets pre­vent­ing, de­tect­ing and re­spond­ing to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

"We were able to re­duce work­ing hours of po­lice of­fi­cers by in­creas­ing our man­pow­er with new po­lice re­cruits go­ing through the Po­lice Acad­e­my's En­hanced In­duc­tion Train­ing Pro­gramme.

"In the past year, we have had more pro­mo­tions than the en­tire his­to­ry of the TTPS. Of­fi­cers of var­i­ous ranks have been pro­mot­ed through a trans­par­ent and fair process. We cre­at­ed his­to­ry when ten peo­ple were ap­point­ed to the rank of as­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, three of whom were women."

That could have been a suc­cess sto­ry.

The Op­po­si­tion is there for checks and bal­ances. But first, I would like the Op­po­si­tion leader to tell us why she got rid of Gibbs.

Sec­ond­ly, I ask Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley, please bring Gibbs back in any ca­pac­i­ty you think fit, but bring him back.