An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, yes­ter­day ad­mit­ted that hav­ing to in­ves­ti­gate Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was not go­ing down well with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Mar­tin made the com­ment as she con­firmed Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed and de­tained on Thurs­day in con­nec­tion with the on­go­ing probe in­to how two high-pow­ered ri­fles im­port­ed in­to the coun­try end­ed up in the hands of Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) agents.

When asked how it felt to be in­ves­ti­gat­ing such a high-rank­ing of­fi­cer dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Mar­tin said, “It is not a nice feel­ing.”

She urged the pub­lic to be pa­tient and let in­ves­ti­ga­tors do their job pro­fes­sion­al­ly, ef­fi­cient­ly and im­par­tial­ly.

Shy­ing away from con­firm­ing ex­act­ly where the CoP was be­ing kept for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons, TTPS le­gal of­fi­cer, Cpl Za­heer Ali, as­sured that “all her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights as a sus­pect” were “be­ing ob­served strict­ly.”

Pressed on what grounds Hare­wood-Christo­pher had been ar­rest­ed, Ali re­vealed, “At this stage, we are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the un­law­ful pro­cure­ment of firearms and ac­ces­sories and that will take us in­to the of­fence of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice but it is not ex­haus­tive.

“As the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues, we may be look­ing at oth­er of­fences and that will be sub­ject to a con­tin­ued con­sul­ta­tion with the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.”

Ali de­clined to say if the of­fence of un­law­ful pro­cure­ment of firearms and ac­ces­sories was the lone cat­a­lyst that prompt­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion against Hare­wood-Christo­pher, or if there were oth­er trig­gers that had con­tributed to the probe.

Sources with knowl­edge of the case told Guardian Me­dia that Ma­jor Roger Best, when he was di­rec­tor of the SSA, wrote to Hare­wood-Christo­pher and re­quest­ed two ri­fles. But the pro­cure­ment process was done through the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) and a firearms deal­er. How­ev­er, the SSA as a civil­ian or­gan­i­sa­tion and Best were not au­tho­rised to buy such weapons.

Best was ar­rest­ed at his Ari­ma home on Wednes­day in con­nec­tion with the on­go­ing probe.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPS, cit­ing so­cial me­dia posts, con­firmed that Chief of De­fence Staff, Vice Mar­shal Dar­ryl Daniel, had nei­ther been ar­rest­ed nor in­ter­ro­gat­ed and was not a per­son of in­ter­est in the on­go­ing firearms im­por­ta­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It urged the pub­lic to re­ly on ver­i­fied sources for in­for­ma­tion and re­frain from spread­ing un­con­firmed re­ports.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters as she ac­knowl­edged the vest­ed pub­lic in­ter­est in the un­fold­ing mat­ter, Mar­tin said while the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was ac­tive and re­mained at a sen­si­tive stage, the au­thor­i­ties were com­mit­ted to up­dat­ing the pub­lic as much as they could.

Say­ing they were work­ing close­ly with the DPP and oth­er rel­e­vant agen­cies to en­sure due process was fol­lowed and all le­gal pro­to­cols were ob­served, Mar­tin con­tin­ued, “I want to as­sure the pub­lic that the ar­rest of the CoP does not af­fect the day-to-day op­er­a­tions of the TTPS.”

She as­sured of­fi­cers re­mained com­mit­ted to serv­ing and pro­tect­ing the cit­i­zen­ry, guid­ed by the ex­ec­u­tive which she de­scribed as “ful­ly func­tion­al.”

De­spite the ar­rest of Hare­wood-Christo­pher, she said, “I as­sure you that we will en­sure that all pro­to­cols will be ob­served.”

Mean­while, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers al­so de­nied al­le­ga­tions yes­ter­day that Hare­wood-Christo­pher had fall­en ill and was rushed to hos­pi­tal. They said they vis­it­ed her at the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion and while the top cop’s blood pres­sure had been “slight­ly el­e­vat­ed,” she re­mained in good spir­its.

They added that Hare­wood-Christo­pher had been “still as­sist­ing with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion” up to yes­ter­day.

Show of sol­i­dar­i­ty

Echo­ing the as­sur­ances by Mar­tin that the TTPS was fo­cused on the task at hand and that all law en­force­ment agents were co­op­er­at­ing to get the job done, DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin said they were com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing “our ju­nior of­fi­cers are mo­ti­vat­ed at this time.”

Al­though the TTPS was with­out a “leader” up to yes­ter­day as Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­mained in po­lice cus­tody, Mar­tin said the ex­pe­ri­enced and com­pe­tent ex­ec­u­tive was head­ed by two deputy com­mis­sion­ers ably as­sist­ed by a slew of as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice.

Mar­tin’s coun­ter­part, DCP Ben­jamin, who is in charge of Op­er­a­tions, is the more se­nior of the two. Both side-stepped ques­tions on who would be in line to take up the reins of the TTPS un­til a new CoP is ap­point­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), should Hare­wood-Christo­pher be for­mal­ly charged.

Ben­jamin lat­er said, “At this time, I would not say we do not have a head.”

He ex­plained there were mul­ti­ple lay­ers to the TTPS as an or­gan­i­sa­tion and its struc­ture would take care of any gaps.

“We have DCPs, with each DCP giv­en re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and each of those re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to­tal­ly en­com­pass all that is need­ed to en­sure the ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient work­ing of the TTPS.”

How­ev­er, he said it was “up to the PolSC to pro­vide fur­ther di­rec­tive in terms of the lead­er­ship.”

De­spite all that had so far tran­spired in the on­go­ing case, Ben­jamin said the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive was uni­fied and con­fi­dent they could pick up the slack in Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ab­sence.

With a line-up of First Di­vi­sion Of­fi­cers stand­ing be­hind him and Mar­tin in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty, Ben­jamin said, “The TTPS ex­ec­u­tive has met and the rea­son we are all here is to show that lev­el of sol­i­dar­i­ty, that we un­der­stand that the TTPS is about giv­ing a lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and there­fore, we can as­sure the pub­lic that in terms of the run­ning of the po­lice ser­vice, all things are in gear to en­sure the ef­fec­tive­ness and the ef­fi­cien­cy.”

He praised the men and women un­der their purview for their re­silience and ris­ing to the chal­lenge in times of ad­ver­si­ty and dis­play­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ism, courage and grace.

Ben­jamin said in the first 31 days of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), 1,813 op­er­a­tions had been car­ried out, 1,423 per­sons had been ar­rest­ed; and 70 firearms and 1,490 rounds of as­sort­ed rounds of am­mu­ni­tion had been re­cov­ered.