RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has pledged to bol­ster se­cu­ri­ty for the ju­di­cia­ry fol­low­ing the mur­der of state pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor, who was gunned down last Tues­day, months af­ter he pros­e­cut­ed a known gang leader.

This comes amid mount­ing fears from state pros­e­cu­tors in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, some of whom have threat­ened to with­draw from high-pro­file gang cas­es out of con­cern for their safe­ty.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter at­tend­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) In­ter­faith Ser­vice at St Paul’s An­gli­can Church in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, day sev­en of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), the Com­mis­sion­er as­sured cit­i­zens that the ju­di­cia­ry will get ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. She ex­plained that al­though the mea­sures will not be vis­i­ble to the pub­lic, they will be in place.

“You may not see it but it will be there. We are work­ing on pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to the ju­di­cia­ry,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher said.

Asked about the suc­cess of the SoE and the ar­rest of high-pro­file crim­i­nals, she said, “It is day sev­en. Yes, we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a mea­sure of suc­cess, but I would not want to go in­to much de­tail.”

On whether any “big fish” had been ar­rest­ed, she re­spond­ed: “Don’t wor­ry, we have a mix. It’s the State of Emer­gency. Day sev­en is still ear­ly, and we are hope­ful that we will get our big fish.”

She ad­mit­ted that man­pow­er short­ages re­main a crit­i­cal is­sue for the TTPS, say­ing the prob­lem has per­sist­ed for five years.

Asked to com­ment on da­ta pro­vid­ed by Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Gideon Dick­son that the TTPS had a short­fall of 1,400 of­fi­cers, Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­spond­ed, “In terms of the staffing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, we know for the past five years we have been short. We have been work­ing on re­cruit­ing of­fi­cers. We must note there is a process for re­cruit­ment. Over the year, al­though we were sup­posed to re­cruit 1,000 of­fi­cers in 2024, that was stymied sim­ply be­cause of the process­es.”

She added, “We have ap­pli­cants who have failed the poly­graph and psy­cho­me­t­ric tests, and we have to en­sure that while we re­cruit, we re­cruit the best. Un­til we are able to re­cruit, we will have a short­age.”

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, South­ern As­sem­bly of Lawyers Saira Lakhan yes­ter­day said she wel­comed the CoP’s as­sur­ances.

“I wel­come it not just for mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry but al­so for the DPP at­tor­neys and pub­lic de­fend­er at­tor­neys as well,” Lakhan told Guardian Me­dia.

She added: “Be­cause of the re­cent mur­der, there is a gen­er­al fear in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty and mov­ing for­ward there would be fear con­cern­ing the pros­e­cu­tion of any gang mem­ber.”

Asked whether the com­mis­sion­er’s as­sur­ances were enough to al­lay those fears, Lakhan said, “Un­less we have par­tic­u­lars of this com­ing in from mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry, at least if there is a plan pro­vid­ed to the DPP, the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ Of­fice or the Chief Jus­tice that is sat­is­fac­to­ry, I would say this is just old talk un­less we have feed­back from the stake­hold­ers say­ing they are sat­is­fied with the mea­sures.”

The TTPS In­ter­faith Ser­vice start­ed at 10.30 am with top brass of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing the CoP, march­ing in the rain along Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

Fa­ther Ed­win Primus, In­spec­tor Kr­ish­na Per­sad and Po­lice Con­sta­ble Rochford de­liv­ered prayers and re­flec­tions. Fa­ther Aaron Charles lament­ed that too of­ten, po­lice of­fi­cers are blamed for crime even though they have con­straints.

In­spec­tor Per­sad prayed for God’s pro­tec­tion over all po­lice of­fi­cers as they con­tin­ued to bat­tle crime. Woman Act­ing In­spec­tor Venus Pitt-Lee al­so prayed for a change in the crime wave.