RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A sharp rise in po­lice-re­lat­ed shoot­ings last year has been record­ed by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA).

How­ev­er, while PCA di­rec­tor David West says it is yet to analyse how many of these shoot­ings oc­curred be­cause po­lice of­fi­cers were tar­gets, it is cer­tain­ly time to look again at the pol­i­cy of of­fi­cers be­ing al­lowed to take home firearms.

His com­ments fol­low a shoot­ing at La­dy Chan­cel­lor Hill on Wednes­day night in which an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer shot and killed two men and in­jured an­oth­er in what was be­lieved to have been an at­tempt­ed rob­bery.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia, West said there were 83 po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, both fa­tal and non-fa­tal, for 2020 which in­volved 109 vic­tims. Out of these 83 shoot­ings, 55 peo­ple were killed by the po­lice.

This rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease when com­pared to the fa­tal and non-fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings for 2015, in which on­ly 12 peo­ple died out of 29 in­ci­dents. 

West said sev­er­al fac­tors could be re­spon­si­ble for the in­crease.

“The PCA has no spe­cif­ic sta­tis­tics re­gard­ing crim­i­nal el­e­ments tar­get­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, we have not looked at that or analysed that as yet,” he said.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that the PCA should play a greater role in any de­ci­sion to send po­lice of­fi­cers home with per­son­al firearms.

“As part of the func­tions un­der the act, we would wel­come be­ing in­volved in the draft­ing of a pol­i­cy re­gard­ing when of­fi­cers should be al­lowed to have a per­son­al firearm,” West said.

He not­ed that some po­lice of­fi­cers have abused the priv­i­lege of car­ry­ing per­son­al firearms.

“The is­sue on whether a po­lice of­fi­cer at­tached to a task force or spe­cial unit should be giv­en a per­son­al firearm to pro­tect them­selves is re­al­ly for the TTPS or the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to make that de­ci­sion. There have been cir­cum­stances where of­fi­cers who have been giv­en a firearm abused that priv­i­lege,” West said.

He added, “For ex­am­ple, we have had in­ci­dents of of­fi­cers los­ing the firearm or threat­en­ing spous­es or part­ners in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mat­ters or dis­charg­ing firearms in night clubs.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, In­sp Gideon Dick­son, said he did not have the sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the PCA. He de­ferred com­ment un­til prop­er analy­sis of the sta­tis­tics could be done.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the is­sue, Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said be­cause of the work that some of­fi­cers do and the spe­cialised units they work in, their lives are al­ways at risk.

“They of­ten be­come tar­gets of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. In some cas­es, we have had to move po­lice of­fi­cers out of the en­vi­ron­ment in which they lived be­cause of the gang cul­ture and place them in a more se­cure place. Be­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer is a dan­ger­ous job and crim­i­nals will al­so tar­get them be­cause of the suc­cess­es they have achieved,” Grif­fith said. 

He not­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers are high­ly trained and they are like­ly to hit their tar­gets.

“Look at what hap­pened at La­dy Chan­cel­lor on Wednes­day night. An at­tempt was made to rob a po­lice of­fi­cer who was jog­ging. Luck­i­ly for the po­lice of­fi­cer, the gun­man who fired at him missed the mark. Un­for­tu­nate­ly for the gun­man and his ac­com­plices, the po­lice­man, be­ing trained, was able to hit his tar­get.”

He said while 55 per­sons were killed by the po­lice last year, there were 130 in­stances of po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing shot at.

“That was 35 more than in 2019. That amounts to an av­er­age of a po­lice of­fi­cer be­ing shot at every three days last year,” he said.

On Wednes­day, a po­lice of­fi­cer opened fire on a group of men, af­ter one of them came out a car, ap­proached and shot at the of­fi­cer as he was walk­ing along the La­dy Chan­cel­lor Hill with his girl­friend.

The two slain sus­pects were iden­ti­fied as Franklin De Fre­itas, 35 and Jah­meal Phillip 22. A 26-year-old man who sought med­ical aid at hos­pi­tal for gun­shot wounds fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent re­mains un­der po­lice guard.