RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Fif­teen days af­ter West­ern Di­vi­sion tac­ti­cal of­fi­cer PC Gilkes was killed dur­ing a po­lice ex­er­cise in Diego Mar­tin, three po­lice of­fi­cers have now been sus­pend­ed, along­side a ma­jor shake-up in the di­vi­sion.

This lat­est de­vel­op­ment was an­nounced by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc Don­ald Ja­cob yes­ter­day, dur­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s show, Be­yond the Tape, host­ed by Supt Roger Alexan­der.

In thank­ing the di­rec­tor of the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre and the en­tire staff for work­ing to ac­cel­er­ate bal­lis­tic test­ing on the weapons of Gilkes’ col­leagues who were in­volved in the ex­er­cise, Ja­cob ad­mit­ted he had to make de­ci­sions af­ter re­ceiv­ing that re­port.

“I have placed three of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion who were di­rect­ly in­volved in the in­ci­dent on im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion in or­der that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions can con­tin­ue in the re­ceiv­ing of fur­ther in­for­ma­tion,” Ja­cob said.

He al­so said he had ap­point­ed the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment to head the in­ves­ti­ga­tions joint­ly with the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau.

Ja­cob said sev­er­al se­nior of­fi­cers were al­so trans­ferred out of the Port-of-Spain and West­ern Di­vi­sions and “the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the West­ern Di­vi­sion will be pro­ceed­ing on ap­proved va­ca­tion leave.”

Ja­cob, how­ev­er, did not di­vulge what the bal­lis­tic re­port con­tained.

When the in­ci­dent oc­curred last month, po­lice ini­tial­ly blamed Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent Jehlano Rom­ney for Gilkes’ killing. They claimed they went to Rich Plain Road, Diego Mar­tin, af­ter re­ceiv­ing a re­port of men be­ing seen there with high-pow­ered weapons. When they got to the area, the of­fi­cers claimed they were fired up­on and Gilkes was hit.

How­ev­er, an au­top­sy re­port con­firmed Gilkes was shot in the back of the head and Rom­ney was cleared of this charge and the fo­cus of the probe changed to fo­cus on the of­fi­cers in­volved in the in­ci­dent.

On Thurs­day, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian me­dia, Rom­ney said he had no weapon that day and said it was the of­fi­cers who at­tempt­ed to kill him but in­stead shot Gilkes.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, head­ed by David West, is al­so con­tin­u­ing an in­de­pen­dent probe in­to the in­ci­dent.

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