Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

For 2024 so far, sev­en po­lice­men have been mur­dered and three of­fi­cers wound­ed in sep­a­rate, un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dents.

In the most re­cent in­ci­dent, 25-year-old PC Kr­ish­na Ba­na­har of the Siparia CID was killed in a shootout with gun­men at a house in Guapo ear­ly on the morn­ing of No­vem­ber 6.

Ba­na­har and oth­er of­fi­cers went to the house to ex­e­cute a search war­rant for il­le­gal items when he was shot sev­er­al times by one of the sus­pects. An­oth­er man, iden­ti­fied as Hakim Joseph, was al­so killed in the in­ci­dent.

As of Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon de­tails of the na­ture of the ex­er­cise, in­clud­ing what in­tel­li­gence prompt­ed the search and what prepa­ra­tions were made be­fore­hand, re­mained un­clear as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued in­to the mat­ter.

Ba­na­har is the first po­lice­man to be killed in the line of du­ty since 2022, when PC Clarence Gilkes, 44, was shot dead in Rich Plain, Diego Mar­tin. How­ev­er, be­fore Ba­na­har’s mur­der, sev­er­al oth­er off-du­ty of­fi­cers were killed at their part-time jobs or in so­cial set­tings, re­flect­ing a dan­ger­ous trend of crim­i­nals will­ing to at­tack any­one.

On Oc­to­ber 19, sus­pend­ed Cpl Shel­don Pe­ter­son was shot and killed at the Awe­some Food and Drinks Su­per­mar­ket on Olton Road, Ari­ma, by gun­men who tried to rob the es­tab­lish­ment. Pe­ter­son tried to de­fend the busi­ness us­ing his li­censed pis­tol but was killed. The gun was al­so stolen.

Days ear­li­er on Oc­to­ber 12, PC Jerome Bleas­dell was gunned down while leav­ing a San Juan gro­cery where he worked as a part-time se­cu­ri­ty guard.

In May, PC Dale May­ers was killed when he tried to thwart a rob­bery at a Long­denville Bar where he was lim­ing.

In March Sgt Lar­ry Phillip, a mem­ber of the TTPS band, was one of four peo­ple gunned down in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing on Harpe Place, east Port-of-Spain.

One month ear­li­er in Feb­ru­ary Cpl Mar­lone Mitchell was shot and killed when his li­censed pis­tol was wres­tled away from him by an­oth­er man dur­ing a heat­ed ar­gu­ment at a Cou­va bar.

In Jan­u­ary, PC Ravin­dra Har­ri­nar­ine was killed af­ter vis­it­ing a friend at their Bassie Street, Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn, home.

While po­lice of­fi­cers of­ten act as the first re­spon­ders to crime, they are rarely the vic­tims of at­tacks, as there is a per­cep­tion that a crime against a po­lice of­fi­cer will at­tract a stronger po­lice re­sponse, in­clud­ing search­es, pa­trols and over­all sur­veil­lance in ar­eas where the crime hap­pened.

This tenac­i­ty to con­front crim­i­nals was re­in­forced by for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith in 2020 when, in con­firm­ing the death of a sus­pect in re­la­tion to the mur­der of off-du­ty po­lice­man PC Nicholas Vic­tor, he said: “You touch one, you touch all.”

In re­cent times, there ap­pears to be lit­tle hes­i­tance to at­tack po­lice of­fi­cers, a chang­ing trend which has been at­trib­uted to the in­creas­ing­ly reck­less na­ture of crim­i­nals.

In the wake of Ba­na­har’s death, sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers have asked whether ad­e­quate prepa­ra­tion and in­tel­li­gence were done be­fore the ex­er­cise was ap­proved. It was un­clear if Ba­na­har was wear­ing a bul­let­proof vest at the time of the in­ci­dent.

On Wednes­day ACP South-Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar said Ba­na­har worked as a de­tec­tive with the Siparia CID and was not re­quired to wear a uni­form.

One se­nior of­fi­cer said that prop­er sur­veil­lance and in­for­ma­tion must be ob­tained be­fore a tar­get­ed search or raid can be ap­proved. The source said the most se­nior of­fi­cer at a giv­en po­lice sta­tion or unit would con­duct an in­spec­tion ex­er­cise called a “pa­rade and dis­patch,” to en­sure of­fi­cers cho­sen to go in­to the field are equipped to han­dle any threats or sce­nar­ios which might arise.

“The nec­es­sary work and back­ground in­for­ma­tion must be done be­fore you can ob­tain a search war­rant from the Mas­ter of the Court,” he said.

“That in­cludes know­ing who you’re go­ing af­ter if it’s a firearms of­fend­er who may be high risk and put up a fight or not. De­pend­ing on the lev­el of the threat, a spe­cialised unit like the In­ter-Agency Task Force or the GEB (Guard and Emer­gency Branch) may be called in while the oth­er of­fi­cers stand back and wait for them to clear the home.”

Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion con­cerned

On Thurs­day, pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) ASP Gideon Dick­son said Ba­na­har’s mur­der was proof that crim­i­nals are be­com­ing more em­bold­ened even when con­front­ed by the po­lice. This feel­ing was shared by as­so­ci­a­tion vice pres­i­dent act­ing ASP Ish­mael Pitt. He said there is a “high lev­el of con­cern,” among their mem­ber­ship.

Pitt not­ed how­ev­er that the will­ing­ness to at­tack po­lice may not be part of a gen­er­al mind­set among all crim­i­nals but felt it was still a point of con­cern for all of­fi­cers.

“I think there are per­sons who have be­come more and more brazen and it could be that per­cep­tion or that men­tal­i­ty that per­sons had pre­vi­ous­ly it prob­a­bly might be go­ing out of the win­dow. Hav­ing said that, we can­not take things for grant­ed, we urge all of our of­fi­cers to re­spond ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, and utilise all means with­in the con­fines of the law to en­sure their safe­ty and the mem­bers of the pub­lic,” he said.

Pitt urged of­fi­cers to use their train­ing and ex­er­cise aware­ness even when off-du­ty to en­sure their safe­ty.

In Sep­tem­ber 2014, the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion put for­ward a $1 mil­lion death ben­e­fit for rel­a­tives of mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices who died on du­ty.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions through the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, DCP Natasha George con­firmed that as of Thurs­day, three fam­i­lies have been ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the grant, but she did not pro­vide any fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on who they were.

Se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts: De­ci­sive ac­tion need­ed

Firearms sub­ject mat­ter ex­pert and com­bat spe­cial­ist Paul Na­hous said the num­ber of of­fi­cers killed in 2024 is ev­i­dence that po­lice are ex­posed to the same lev­el of threats as the gen­er­al pub­lic.

Na­hous has worked close­ly with the TTPS un­der for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, in rec­om­mend­ing poli­cies.

He in­sist­ed that while of­fi­cers must con­duct them­selves pro­fes­sion­al­ly with­in the law with due process in mind, crim­i­nals re­spon­si­ble for at­tack­ing po­lice of­fi­cers must be ar­rest­ed and brought to jus­tice swift­ly. He said such a re­sponse is nec­es­sary to pre­vent the po­lice from be­ing per­ceived as in­ef­fec­tive, es­pe­cial­ly in sit­u­a­tions where of­fi­cers are the vic­tims.

“If they kill a po­lice of­fi­cer, they are test­ing the sys­tem and if the re­sponse isn’t force­ful enough and they aren’t brought to jus­tice in quick time, they will con­tin­ue push­ing the bound­ary. They (the crim­i­nals) not go­ing to go out­right and have open war­fare with the po­lice, but they will take the chance and shoot at the po­lice. They re­alise they are not get­ting the push­back from law en­force­ment agen­cies to show them who is re­al­ly in charge,” he said.

Se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Garvin Heer­ah said the threats fac­ing po­lice of­fi­cers and the num­ber of of­fi­cers killed in 2024 are a tes­ta­ment to the sac­ri­fices they are re­quired to make. He agreed that de­ci­sive ac­tion was need­ed from the au­thor­i­ties with a clear mes­sage of ze­ro tol­er­ance for crim­i­nals.

“Lead­er­ship must con­vey to all crim­i­nal el­e­ments that as­saults on law en­force­ment will be met with the full weight of the law and strate­gic de­ter­rence mea­sures. We must pro­tect those who pro­tect us, and let it be known that any af­front to law and or­der will not stand. This is a crit­i­cal mo­ment for our na­tion, and it de­mands both ac­tion and an un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to se­cu­ri­ty,” Heer­ah said.

The mur­der toll as of No­vem­ber 7 was 536 com­pared to 494 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Cops killed for 2024 thus far (Put in box)

- Jan­u­ary: Off-du­ty po­lice­man PC Ravin­dra Har­ri­nar­ine, was shot and killed out­side a friend’s home on Bassie Street, Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn. His li­censed pis­tol was stolen by the gun­men.

- Feb­ru­ary: Cpl Mar­lone Mitchell, was shot and killed with his li­censed pis­tol when it was wres­tled away from his grip by an­oth­er man. The in­ci­dent was the re­sult of a heat­ed ex­change be­tween Mitchell and the man who lat­er sur­ren­dered to the po­lice with his at­tor­ney and re­turned Mar­lone’s gun.

- March: Lar­ry Phillip, 51, a sergeant in the po­lice band, was one of four peo­ple gunned down in Harpe Place, east Port of Spain, dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing.

- May: PC Dale May­ers, 53, was gunned down when he tried to thwart a rob­bery at a Long­denville bar where he was lim­ing.

- Oc­to­ber 12: PC Jerome Bleas­dell was shot and killed af­ter leav­ing a San Juan su­per­mar­ket where he worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

- Oc­to­ber 19: PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son was gunned down when he con­front­ed ban­dits out­side an Ari­ma gro­cery where he worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

- No­vem­ber 9: PC Kr­ish­na Ba­na­har was shot and killed dur­ing a search ex­er­cise in Guapo.

Po­lice of­fi­cers killed in the line of du­ty over the years (Put in box)

- No­vem­ber 6: PC Kr­ish­na Ba­na­har was shot and killed when he and oth­er of­fi­cers from the Siparia CID vis­it­ed a house in Gon­za­les Vil­lage, Guapo, to ex­e­cute a search war­rant.

- April 22, 2022: PC Clarence Gilkes was killed when he and oth­er of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force re­spond­ed to a re­port of gun­men in Up­per Rich Plain Road, Diego Mar­tin. Of­fi­cers at the scene claimed Gilkes was shot and killed by a gun­man, but an au­top­sy re­vealed that he was killed by a po­lice-is­sued bul­let and was shot be­hind his head, di­rect­ly con­tra­dict­ing this ac­count.

- Ju­ly 24, 2015: PC Sher­man May­nard was shot and killed by es­cap­ing pris­on­ers out­side the Port of Spain Re­mand Fa­cil­i­ty on Up­per Fred­er­ick Street. May­nard was as­signed as part of a ‘sta­t­ic’ or sta­tion­ary pa­trol out­side the fa­cil­i­ty at the time.

- Feb­ru­ary 18, 2013: Sgt Hay­den Man­war­ing was shot and killed when he and oth­er of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a re­port of a rob­bery in San Fer­nan­do. Man­war­ing re­port­ed­ly at­tempt­ed to ar­rest one of the sus­pects when they strug­gled over his pis­tol and was shot once in his ab­domen. An­oth­er po­lice­man, PC Nicholas Phillip was shot in his arm dur­ing the con­fronta­tion but sur­vived.

- May 2011: PC Anil Per­sad, 30, was shot in his stom­ach dur­ing a shootout at a po­lice raid on a mar­i­jua­na field in the Charu­ma For­est, Rio Claro. It is un­clear whether Per­sad was shot by crim­i­nals or fel­low of­fi­cers.

- De­cem­ber 30, 2002: PC Kier­an Parke, 39, was shot in his back when he vis­it­ed a mi­ni-mart on Ajod­ha Street, Don Miguel Road, Barataria, to serve a court sum­mons. Parke’s po­lice-is­sued pis­tol was stolen in the at­tack.

- Ju­ly 27, 1990: Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) Con­sta­ble Solomon McLeod was shot and killed at the north en­trance of Po­lice Head­quar­ters dur­ing the events of the at­tempt­ed coup.

- Ju­ly 27, 1990: ASP Roger George was killed in the at­tack at the Red House.

- 1982: PC Ramkhelawan Bootan was shot and killed when he re­spond­ed to a re­port of a break-in at the Tamil Build­ing on the cor­ner of Duke and Ed­ward Street, Port-of-Spain. Bootan con­front­ed the sus­pect who over­pow­ered him and shot him with his ser­vice-is­sued pis­tol killing him. Bootan was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Medal gold that year.