JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Last year, se­nior of­fi­cers from the TTPS were sent on ex­ten­sive leave. Se­nior Supt Roger Alexan­der was sent on a two-year break from polic­ing.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher said her de­ci­sion to do so was met with crit­i­cism as it came months af­ter she man­dat­ed that leave for all po­lice of­fi­cers be re­strict­ed, ow­ing to in­creased crime.

While two for­mer heads of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said that se­nior of­fi­cers go­ing on ex­ten­sive leave will not im­pact crime-fight­ing strate­gies, one se­nior of­fi­cer who is cur­rent­ly on leave dis­agrees.

Both Gary Grif­fith and James Philbert agree that with the ex­ten­sive va­ca­tion leave of se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, crime fight­ing will not be ham­pered.

Mean­while, while con­fi­dent in the po­lice’s abil­i­ty, the of­fi­cer, who did not want to be named, said the ab­sence of se­nior of­fi­cers would im­pact crime fight­ing.

“Right now, it’s like re­mov­ing the chef from the kitchen when the pot is on the fire. The Com­mis­sion­er is caught be­tween a rock and a hard place, and she will have to de­fend her de­ci­sion. Peo­ple will say there is no link be­tween se­niors go­ing on leave and crime-fight­ing ef­forts, but peo­ple are not pre­pared to hear the truth,” the of­fi­cer said.

The of­fi­cer added that there is a lack of suc­ces­sion plan­ning in the po­lice ser­vice with of­fi­cers be­ing pro­mot­ed with no prop­er train­ing to func­tion in the role.

“There are a lot of un­der­de­vel­oped po­lice of­fi­cers to take up the man­tle when se­niors are gone. To get pro­mot­ed is a three-step method—a per­for­mance ap­praisal, in which in most cas­es every­one gets a favourable re­sponse; a mul­ti­ple-choice ques­tion­naire; and an in­ter­view. There is no train­ing.”

He added that this learn-on-the-job method weak­ens the lead­er­ship.

Af­ter learn­ing how to nav­i­gate their re­spec­tive di­vi­sions or de­part­ments, some se­nior of­fi­cers are moved or sent on leave, the of­fi­cer said, recre­at­ing a prob­lem of hav­ing a new in­ex­pe­ri­enced per­son to spend time learn­ing on the go and try­ing to keep their crime sta­tis­tics down.

Alexan­der, who has been the face of the TTPS as co-host of its Be­yond the Tape pro­gramme, be­gan his 773 days leave last Tues­day.

Alexan­der, at the time of his de­par­ture, was in charge of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, where there was an up­surge in gang vi­o­lence in the last quar­ter of last year.

Oth­er lead­ers to be sent on months-long leave in­clude se­nior su­per­in­ten­dents Richard Smith, Anand Rame­sar, Bri­an Ram­phal, and Os­wain Subero.

Re­ly on the unit,
not the per­son

Grif­fith, who led the TTPS be­tween 2018 and 2021, said that prop­er tran­si­tion­al train­ing, de­pend­ing on the or­gan­i­sa­tion and not the in­di­vid­ual, was key to crime fight­ing.

“You can’t de­pend on the most se­nior per­son and if they go on leave you say that is the rea­son for every­thing falling down. That is to­tal­ly un­true. You must have a good tran­si­tion to en­sure that a per­son’s leave is not ac­cu­mu­lat­ed. And if it is, you have to make sure that your se­nior ech­e­lon of mid­dle man­age­ment has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to fill the void, which is what I did.”

He added that dur­ing his tenure he pro­vid­ed train­ing to of­fi­cers so when they were pro­mot­ed, they func­tioned well in their new roles and were not caught off-guard. He said when he be­came top cop, there were se­nior of­fi­cers re­sis­tant to change, es­pe­cial­ly tech­no­log­i­cal changes, which made his thrust for that dif­fi­cult.

Like Grif­fith, Philbert said not on­ly se­niors, but all po­lice of­fi­cers should be em­brac­ing all that the tech­no­log­i­cal world has to of­fer when it comes to crime fight­ing.

He ques­tioned the neg­a­tive im­pact on se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers leav­ing for any rea­son—re­tire­ment or va­ca­tion—say­ing if all po­lice of­fi­cers op­er­ate the way the sup­posed hero cop does, then the ser­vice will be much greater.

“Leave is de­signed to re­fresh you. You can’t have some­body work­ing all the time. By the very na­ture of the job, if you are re­al­ly work­ing, then you need to go on leave.”

Ref­er­enc­ing Alexan­der, Philbert said the TTPS have had of­fi­cers in the past like him who he de­scribed as a “lamp­post”, where oth­ers lean on, who have left the ser­vice, some died, “and the TTPS is still there.” He stressed that the re­liance on in­di­vid­u­als and not the ser­vice can crip­ple crime fight­ing.

“Ac­tive po­lice work with re­sults will be recog­nised and it cre­ates an im­pact. And if crim­i­nals are not afraid to do what they do, the Po­lice Ser­vice needs to look in­to that and know why.”

He added that it is not about want­i­ng crim­i­nals to fear the po­lice but know­ing that there are of­fi­cers who will ap­pre­hend them. This should not be lim­it­ed to se­nior of­fi­cers but the en­tire po­lice ser­vice, he said.