RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has ini­ti­at­ed dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings against three of­fi­cers fol­low­ing the col­lapse of Mon­day’s high-pro­file court case in­volv­ing sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher con­firmed yes­ter­day that dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tions are al­ready un­der­way against the po­lice com­plainants. The case was dis­missed due to pro­ce­dur­al er­rors made by the of­fi­cers man­ag­ing it.

The TTPS’ ac­tion forms part of an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to po­ten­tial breach­es of pro­ce­dure, mis­con­duct, or neg­li­gence in the case.

On Mon­day, cor­rup­tion charges against sev­en cops were dis­missed, fol­lowed by the dis­missal of charges against five ad­di­tion­al of­fi­cers on Wednes­day for ex­tor­tion and mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice. The com­mis­sion­er is al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing the sec­ond mat­ter in­volv­ing the five of­fi­cers.

She not­ed that the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) has been en­gaged to chart the way for­ward.

“At this time, dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings have been car­ried out. The in­quiry has been ini­ti­at­ed against three of­fi­cers, stem­ming from the first mat­ter in­volv­ing sev­en of­fi­cers. The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions has al­so been en­gaged with re­spect to de­ter­min­ing the way for­ward with these two mat­ters,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher added.

“The TTPS recog­nis­es the grav­i­ty of these mat­ters, and we are com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing them in ac­cor­dance with the full ex­tent of the law,” Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher said. “Any of­fi­cer found guilty of mis­con­duct will be held ful­ly ac­count­able.”

She reaf­firmed the TTPS’s com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and ad­her­ence to the rule of law, em­pha­sis­ing the ser­vice’s ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy for er­rant be­hav­iour.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher added that up­on learn­ing of the case out­comes, she im­me­di­ate­ly re­quest­ed a re­port to iden­ti­fy any pro­ce­dur­al fail­ures that con­tributed to the col­laps­es.

“Im­me­di­ate­ly up­on re­ceipt of the in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the court mat­ters, I re­quest­ed a re­port in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing these case man­age­ment fail­ures. The in­quiry is on­go­ing and ex­tends to iden­ti­fy­ing the full ex­tent of any pos­si­ble breach­es of es­tab­lished poli­cies and pro­ce­dures to de­ter­mine if there is any mis­con­duct or neg­li­gence,” she stat­ed.

She said she in­tends to en­sure full ac­count­abil­i­ty. “It is my in­ten­tion to do every­thing pos­si­ble to en­sure that these mat­ters are de­ter­mined in ac­cor­dance with the full ex­tent of the law,” she said.

On Mon­day, Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va dis­missed charges against the sev­en of­fi­cers, cit­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al fail­ures, in­clud­ing the ab­sence of wit­ness­es, miss­ing ev­i­dence, and non-com­pli­ance with court pro­ce­dures. The of­fi­cers had been charged in April 2023 fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion against a San­gre Grande busi­ness­man dur­ing an op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing il­le­gal gam­bling es­tab­lish­ments.

A vi­ral video pur­port­ed­ly show­ing of­fi­cers seiz­ing cash dur­ing the op­er­a­tion had sparked pub­lic out­cry, but de­fence at­tor­neys ar­gued the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was in­com­plete and lacked sub­stan­tive ev­i­dence.

In Wednes­day’s mat­ter, the of­fi­cers—PC Jabari Mc In­tyre, PC Kevin Gomez, WPC Lat­i­fah Leza­ma, PC Kee­nen Williams, and PC Evans Mitchell—were ac­cused of so­lic­it­ing $30,000 and five pounds of mar­i­jua­na from a cou­ple dur­ing a search op­er­a­tion at their home in Five Rivers, Arou­ca, on No­vem­ber 2, 2022. At­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, rep­re­sent­ing the of­fi­cers, suc­cess­ful­ly ar­gued that the State had not met the ev­i­den­tiary thresh­old, de­spite be­ing giv­en three op­por­tu­ni­ties to do so.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has al­so ini­ti­at­ed a probe in­to the col­lapse of both cas­es in which the 12 of­fi­cers were freed.

PCA Di­rec­tor David West said the dis­missals fol­low nu­mer­ous re­fer­rals for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion and re­peat­ed ad­vice giv­en by the au­thor­i­ty to com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice over the past 13 years.

The PCA high­light­ed re­cur­ring pro­ce­dur­al fail­ures and their im­pact on the ju­di­cial sys­tem, stress­ing the need for ur­gent cor­rec­tive mea­sures.

The is­sue of case col­laps­es has reignit­ed con­cerns about sys­temic in­ef­fi­cien­cies in the TTPS, with for­mer com­mis­sion­ers Gary Grif­fith and Stephen Williams weigh­ing in.

Grif­fith, who served as com­mis­sion­er from 2018 to 2021, harsh­ly crit­i­cised on­go­ing ab­sen­teeism among of­fi­cers, which he claimed is a key fac­tor in case col­laps­es. “When of­fi­cers fail to show up, cas­es col­lapse, vic­tims lose faith, and crim­i­nals walk free,” Grif­fith stat­ed. He point­ed to re­forms dur­ing his tenure, such as in­tro­duc­ing civil­ian at­tor­neys to man­age case files, which he said re­duced ab­sen­teeism by 83-91 per cent across di­vi­sions.

“The de­ci­sion to re­move civil­ian at­tor­neys and re­turn case man­age­ment to of­fi­cers has un­done years of progress,” Grif­fith added, em­pha­sis­ing that ab­sen­teeism con­tin­ues to pose a sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic safe­ty con­cern.

Stephen Williams ac­knowl­edged ab­sen­teeism as a chal­lenge but ar­gued it is not al­ways due to neg­li­gence. “Of­fi­cers of­ten face is­sues such as ill­ness, mi­gra­tion, or un­time­ly deaths that con­tribute to ab­sen­teeism,” Williams ex­plained. He ad­vo­cat­ed for a more holis­tic ap­proach, in­clud­ing bet­ter train­ing, re­sources, and in­cen­tives for of­fi­cers to im­prove court at­ten­dance.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land con­firmed that re­forms are un­der­way, in­clud­ing a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gramme for of­fi­cers in­volved in court cas­es. This pro­gramme aims to ad­dress pro­ce­dur­al short­com­ings and im­prove case prepa­ra­tion and at­ten­dance.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher as­sured the pub­lic that all nec­es­sary steps are be­ing tak­en to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion.

“As com­mis­sion­er, I re­it­er­ate the un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment of my ad­min­is­tra­tion to full ac­count­abil­i­ty, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and ad­her­ence to the rule of law in the con­duct of the af­fairs of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” she said.

She added, “Any of­fi­cer found to have en­gaged in mis­con­duct or failed to meet the re­quired stan­dards of per­for­mance will be held ac­count­able. Any of­fi­cer found to be en­gaged in con­duct that fails to meet the re­quired stan­dards will face the full brunt of the law.”

The TTPS has pledged to up­hold pub­lic trust as it ad­dress­es these press­ing chal­lenges, work­ing to en­sure that such laps­es do not re­cur.