SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

When Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ap­point­ed the coun­try’s first fe­male Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on Feb­ru­ary 3, 2023, it marked a mile­stone in polic­ing’s his­to­ry.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher had topped the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s (PSC) mer­it list of 14 can­di­dates and was vot­ed in favour of a mo­tion by gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion MPs in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to lead the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

She moved from an As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er to the sub­stan­tive rank of CoP, skip­ping the rank of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

The pub­lic knew lit­tle of Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who was due to re­tire on May 15, 2023, at age 60 with 40 years of ser­vice.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions by the Sun­day Guardian short­ly af­ter her ap­point­ment, Hare­wood-Christo­pher de­scribed her­self as “a God-fear­ing Chris­t­ian, con­sid­er­ate and em­pa­thet­ic leader.”

At that time, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told Par­lia­ment that Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s im­mi­nent re­tire­ment did not dis­qual­i­fy her as a nom­i­nee and that the PSC nom­i­nat­ed her “as the high­est-grade can­di­date.”

The pop­u­la­tion had high ex­pec­ta­tions of Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who came in at a time when the coun­try’s 2022 mur­der rate was 605—the high­est record­ed (then)—and trust and con­fi­dence in the po­lice ser­vice was low. There was al­so a cry from a frus­trat­ed and fear­ful pop­u­la­tion for the on­go­ing blood­shed and may­hem to end.

A mere six days in of­fice, Hare­wood-Christo­pher grabbed head­lines when she blanked a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and sent rep­re­sen­ta­tives in her place, as she was at­tend­ing “ur­gent and crit­i­cal” na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters. The move came as a shock to JSC mem­bers be­cause Hare­wood-Christo­pher had con­firmed her at­ten­dance.

In the weeks that fol­lowed, the top cop hit the ground run­ning by or­der­ing nine in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­tween Feb­ru­ary and May—one of which was the probe in­to the dis­ap­pear­ance of some 500 bul­lets po­lice had seized from le­gal firearms deal­er Towfeek Ali. An­oth­er was the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the 2022 ar­rest of firearms deal­er Brent Thomas.

Her call to prayer

As Hare­wood-Christo­pher set out to ac­com­plish her task, she stirred con­tro­ver­sy by urg­ing the pub­lic to pray for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion in the fight against crime.

“The po­lice could come up with what­ev­er strat­e­gy, but un­less we en­list the help of God, we will be work­ing in vain,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher said. There were mixed views on her state­ments. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds ac­cused some sec­tions of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty of “bac­cha­nal” for tak­ing the com­mis­sion­er’s “di­vine in­ter­ven­tion” com­ment out of con­text.

The top cop faced crit­i­cism for rat­ing her own per­for­mance as “ex­cel­lent” dur­ing her first 100 days in of­fice, de­spite 181 mur­ders oc­cur­ring dur­ing that pe­ri­od. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on her to apol­o­gise to the na­tion for her self-as­sess­ment, re­fus­ing to let the mat­ter go.

When Hare­wood-Christo­pher ap­peared be­fore a JSC in May 2023, she ad­mit­ted that her wide­ly pub­li­cised vi­o­lent crime re­duc­tion plan had not panned out as she ex­pect­ed. The tar­gets she had set out in her plan to ar­rest spi­ralling crime were not met, and there was an in­crease in some crimes, in­clud­ing a ten per cent hike in mur­ders dur­ing the ear­ly part of her tenure.

In Sep­tem­ber of 2023, a Mar­aval busi­ness­man emerged vic­to­ri­ous in his law­suit against Hare­wood-Christo­pher. It came as a re­sult of her de­ci­sion to seize all three of his li­cenced firearms af­ter one was stolen by his rel­a­tive, who used it to com­mit sui­cide.

De­liv­er­ing the judg­ment, High Court Judge De­vi­ka Ram­per­sad up­held the ju­di­cial re­view case brought by the man whose name was with­held based on se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns due to the na­ture of the case. At the end of 2023, which had a homi­cide rate of 577, Hare­wood-Christo­pher ad­mit­ted that her job was chal­leng­ing, but she had a sol­id foun­da­tion in her first year.

Her sec­ond term

In the face of sus­tained pub­lic crit­i­cism, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was grant­ed her sec­ond ex­ten­sion in May 2024. Hinds said if the Gov­ern­ment had not act­ed be­fore Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s term had ex­pired on May 14, the coun­try would have been in an un­de­sir­able po­si­tion of not hav­ing a CoP to lead the ser­vice. He said an ex­ten­sion of ser­vice for three years max­i­mum, one year at a time, and at the con­clu­sion of each of those years there ought to be a re­view.

“And we found the PSC’s as­sess­ment of her was good,” he said.

Ap­pear­ing be­fore a JSC in Feb­ru­ary 2024, Hare­wood-Christo­pher ad­mit­ted that the TTPS had failed to achieve any of the 11 crime-fight­ing re­duc­tion tar­gets that were set out in 2023. The tar­gets, she said, were a bit “ex­ag­ger­at­ed” and “am­bi­tious.”

Last Oc­to­ber, the top cop lim­it­ed the use of po­lice tac­ti­cal uni­forms due to a rise in crim­i­nals pos­ing as po­lice to en­gage in kid­nap­ping, ex­tor­tion, and mur­ders.

In a Face­book post last De­cem­ber, Row­ley ex­pressed shock and dis­ap­point­ment over the on­go­ing crime sit­u­a­tion, de­spite the Gov­ern­ment’s sub­stan­tial in­vest­ment of at­ten­tion and re­sources to ad­dress it.

The year 2024 record­ed the high­est mur­der rate in the coun­try’s his­to­ry, with a to­tal of 608 killings. De­spite the killing spree, the top cop said the TTPS made his­toric seizures of drugs, il­le­gal firearms, and am­mu­ni­tion and ar­rest­ed peo­ple in crit­i­cal mat­ters.

Dur­ing last month’s SOE de­bate in Par­lia­ment, Row­ley said some po­lice of­fi­cers had been clos­ing po­lice sta­tions to hide from crim­i­nals. Hare­wood-Christo­pher, how­ev­er, de­fend­ed her of­fi­cers, stat­ing that po­lice sta­tions were al­ways open. As head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Row­ley stuck to his guns, in­sist­ing that his state­ment about the cops hid­ing in sta­tions was based on facts.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher al­so cre­at­ed his­to­ry as the first fe­male CoP to lead her ser­vice in the De­cem­ber 30 State of Emer­gency (SoE), which gave her of­fi­cers ex­tend­ed pow­ers to ar­rest crim­i­nals. With­in hours of the SoE be­ing de­clared, at­tor­ney Ran­dall Hec­tor was gunned down out­side a church in Port-of-Spain.

In a Face­book post, at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la called for an as­sess­ment of the po­lice ser­vice lead­er­ship and re­moval of Hare­wood-Christo­pher. Lal­la queried whether the po­lice had in­tel­li­gence that the hit was be­ing planned.

By Jan­u­ary 4, Hare­wood-Christo­pher boast­ed that the po­lice had ar­rest­ed 126 sus­pects and seized 17 firearms and 675 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing 257 an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions across the ten di­vi­sions.

“This is just get­ting start­ed,” the CoP stat­ed in a press re­lease.

Last Thurs­day, less than a month af­ter stat­ing that things were just get­ting start­ed, Hare­wood-Christo­pher be­came the cen­tre of at­ten­tion when she was ar­rest­ed and de­tained dur­ing the SoE.

She was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and kept in cus­tody at the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion for her al­leged in­volve­ment in im­port­ing two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency.

Yes­ter­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was re­leased from cus­tody and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.