Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day called on his of­fi­cers and all of Trinidad and To­ba­go for full sup­port.

Speak­ing at the first-ever of­fi­cial hand­ing-over cer­e­mo­ny for a po­lice com­mis­sion­er in T&T at the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James, he said, “So, ladies and gen­tle­men, this is not a mo­ment for Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, this is a mo­ment for the TTPS. I want to say here to­day that we want all hands on board.”

Gue­var­ro said his first pri­or­i­ty was to gain the pub­lic’s con­fi­dence and he will meet with his ex­ec­u­tive team next week.

Re­gard­ing his crime-fight­ing plans, he said they will be dis­cussed with his ex­ec­u­tive be­fore be­ing shared with the pub­lic through the me­dia.

The top cop al­so is­sued a firm warn­ing to par­ents, mak­ing it clear school bul­ly­ing will not be tol­er­at­ed un­der his lead­er­ship.

Gue­var­ro, re­cent­ly pro­mot­ed to the rank of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, is cur­rent­ly serv­ing a one-year pro­ba­tion­ary pe­ri­od. If con­firmed, he will re­main in the post un­til his re­tire­ment at age 60.

He re­vealed that of five ma­jor life choic­es, his top choice was al­ways to be­come com­mis­sion­er. Gue­var­ro said he made that de­ci­sion as a child while at­tend­ing St Stephen’s Col­lege, and re­flect­ed on how each of those five choic­es ul­ti­mate­ly led him to ful­fil his life­long dream.

“There was a ca­reer guid­ance day and when they asked, ‘What do you want to be when you leave school?’ I said, I want to be the po­lice com­mis­sion­er,” he said.

“Prophe­cy ful­filled! I can proud­ly say that I have sev­er­al mem­bers of my class who are mem­bers of the po­lice who are present, and they looked at me and said, ‘Why do you want to be a po­lice?’ I said, no, I don’t want to be a po­lice, I want to be the po­lice com­mis­sion­er.”

The life-chang­ing choic­es be­gan with his moth­er, who made a fi­nan­cial sac­ri­fice to trans­fer him from San­ta Maria Ro­man Catholic School to Princes Town RC School.

There, he de­vel­oped the re­solve to ho­n­our her ef­forts by mak­ing the most of the op­por­tu­ni­ty—his sec­ond ma­jor life choice.

An­oth­er key de­ci­sion for the 49-year-old Moru­ga na­tive was to stay away from nar­cotics, a top­ic that arose dur­ing his in­ter­view for the post of com­mis­sion­er.

He al­so chose to ac­cept an in­vi­ta­tion to join the Spe­cial Branch, where he went on to spend most of his ca­reer.

Gue­var­ro set aside his pre­pared speech and spoke off the cuff, de­clar­ing the time had come for po­lice of­fi­cers to once again serve as role mod­els.

Hold­ing up a Guardian Me­dia ar­ti­cle about a po­lice of­fi­cer who joined the ser­vice to set an ex­am­ple for his chil­dren, he said, “The sig­nif­i­cance of this news­pa­per ar­ti­cle in get­ting me to de­sist from read­ing my pre­pared speech is that it is time that the po­lice ser­vice and the of­fi­cers who are mem­bers of this au­gust and es­teemed body re­turn to be­ing role mod­els of so­ci­ety. It is about time we re­turn to be­ing su­per­heroes.”

Ad­dress­ing par­ents, he echoed and re­worked a fa­mous quote from Dr Er­ic Williams, say­ing the fu­ture of the coun­try lies not in chil­dren’s book bags, but in the hands of their par­ents—hands, he stressed, that must guide them.

“I have been look­ing on for the past cou­ple of months and I have been see­ing sev­er­al acts of vi­o­lence en­gag­ing the pub­lic and me­dia at­ten­tion about school vi­o­lence and bul­ly­ing. Un­der my watch, that will nev­er hap­pen. I want to make you a promise here to­day, if you can­not con­trol your chil­dren, we the TTPS will con­fine them.”

Gue­var­ro praised for­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin for his lead­er­ship of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Ben­jamin had as­sumed the role of act­ing com­mis­sion­er on Feb­ru­ary 6, fol­low­ing the ar­rest of then-com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for her al­leged in­volve­ment in the im­por­ta­tion of firearms for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who was no­tably ab­sent from yes­ter­day’s pro­ceed­ings, was sent on 66 days’ va­ca­tion at the end of her con­tract—just days af­ter it emerged that her sus­pen­sion, im­posed fol­low­ing her ar­rest, had been lift­ed. The sus­pen­sion was lift­ed af­ter the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions found there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to pur­sue charges against her.

Gue­var­ro praised Ben­jamin, say­ing, “I want to recog­nise that Mr Ben­jamin an­swered that clar­i­on call when the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice was placed in its dark­est hour. We must recog­nise the bril­liant lead­er­ship with which he held the fort and led this good ship, TTPS through trou­bled wa­ters. Thank you for that sir.”

In his ex­it speech, Ben­jamin said serv­ing as act­ing com­mis­sion­er was the great­est joy of his en­tire life and a dream come through. He urged his fel­low of­fi­cers to sup­port Gue­var­ro as they con­tin­ue to up­hold the prin­ci­ples of jus­tice, fair­ness, and self-sac­ri­fic­ing ser­vice.

“I am proud to pass this ba­ton to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gue­var­ro, a leader of strength, wis­dom and com­mit­ment. I have every con­fi­dence that un­der his com­mand, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice will rise to its great­est heights,” Ben­jamin said.

“May you lead, sir, with great courage. May you lis­ten with em­pa­thy and may you act with con­vic­tion. Know ful­ly well that the of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice are here to sup­port you on this jour­ney.”