RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, has de­bunked cer­tain the so­cial me­dia posts which are brand­ing as im­posters, Po­lice Of­fi­cers car­ry­ing out their le­git­i­mate du­ties as mem­bers of the TTPS COVID-19 Task Force, are be­ing brand­ed as im­posters.

In a strong­ly word­ed news re­lease, Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith con­firms that there is COVID Task Force and that that the men de­pict­ed in the pic­ture are Po­lice Of­fi­cers who were car­ry­ing out a le­git­i­mate func­tion.

The pho­to­graph in ques­tion has been cir­cu­lat­ed via so­cial me­dia, sug­gest­ing that the men were po­lice im­posters.

The top cop is re­mind­ing the pub­lic that the TTPS car­ries out sev­er­al func­tions on be­half of the Min­istry of Health, to man­age the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in this coun­try, which is gen­er­al­ly co­or­di­nat­ed by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Wen­dell Williams.

The re­lease is­sued by the Po­lice Ser­vice ex­plains that po­lice vis­its, co­or­di­nat­ed by ACP Williams, are large­ly to re­store or es­tab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cers of Health and COVID-19 pos­i­tive in­di­vid­u­als.

“Po­lice Of­fi­cers car­ry­ing out these vis­its iden­ti­fy them­selves as Po­lice Of­fi­cers. If cit­i­zens are un­sure, they can ask to see the of­fi­cer’s ID and badge, which the of­fi­cer is oblig­ed to pro­duce. Their vis­its are gen­er­al­ly non-in­tru­sive by word or ac­tion,” the TTPS re­lease states.

“At this lev­el of vis­it, the po­lice of­fi­cers do not board premis­es but com­mu­ni­cate from a safe dis­tance,” Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said. "The in­for­ma­tion they re­quire are al­so sim­ple and rea­son­able and pose no risk to the cit­i­zen.”

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith point­ed out that he es­tab­lished a COVID Task Force in 2020 to as­sist the Min­istry of Health—in par­tic­u­lar to en­sure that quar­an­tined per­sons re­main at home, as the TTPS had re­ceived re­ports that per­sons on quar­an­tine, or COVID-19 pos­i­tive, had been seen in the pub­lic.

He as­sured that ACP Williams is eas­i­ly reach­able on COVID mat­ters.

"So, the po­lice of­fi­cer who re­port­ed­ly ad­vised the pub­lish­er of the so­cial me­dia posts that the TTPS has no COVID-19 Task Force, ei­ther mis­led the cit­i­zen or was mis­quot­ed," the CoP said.

He added that ACP Williams co­or­di­nates a func­tion­al net­work of po­lice of­fi­cers with­in all Di­vi­sions and some Branch­es of the Po­lice Ser­vice to ful­fil those MOH re­quests.