An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice-elect Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says he is hum­bled by the Par­lia­ment’s de­ci­sion to ap­point him as new head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

In a state­ment hours af­ter the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion unan­i­mous­ly ac­cept­ed him as the new CoP, Gue­var­ro said, “I am deeply hum­bled by Par­lia­ment’s con­fir­ma­tion of my ap­point­ment as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and I thank Almighty God for his guid­ance through­out this jour­ney.”

Ex­tend­ing re­spect to the oth­er can­di­dates who par­tic­i­pat­ed in what Gue­var­ro de­scribed as a trans­par­ent and rig­or­ous se­lec­tion process, he said, “Their ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to the TTPS, serves as an ex­am­ple to the younger of­fi­cers who de­sire to be­come fu­ture lead­ers with­in our no­ble pro­fes­sion.

“I am grate­ful to the Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment for their con­fi­dence in my lead­er­ship, and to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go for their con­tin­ued sup­port.”

As he awaits the next step in the process, Gue­var­ro as­sured, “I re­main ful­ly com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing the vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice: To make every place in Trinidad and To­ba­go safe.

“I am mind­ful of the se­ri­ous is­sues cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing pub­lic con­cern; in­clud­ing school vi­o­lence, ris­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, the im­per­a­tive to strength­en pub­lic trust in polic­ing, gang in­flu­ence in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties, firearm-re­lat­ed crime, and road safe­ty chal­lenges.”

He added, “I look for­ward to part­ner­ing with stake­hold­ers across so­ci­ety to ad­dress these mat­ters with in­tegri­ty, trans­paren­cy, and re­solve.”

Gue­var­ro, 49, topped the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s (PolSC) mer­it list to suc­ceed cur­rent act­ing CoP Ju­nior Ben­jamin.

Ben­jamin has been oc­cu­py­ing the post since Feb­ru­ary 6, when he was cho­sen by the PolSC to re­place Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who was sus­pend­ed af­ter a probe was launched in­to her in­volve­ment in the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

Gue­var­ro, a fa­ther of two girls and an avid hunter, cur­rent­ly holds the post of Snr Supt in the Spe­cial Branch.

Ex­tend­ing hearty con­grat­u­la­tions to Gue­var­ro, act­ing CoP Ben­jamin ap­pealed to po­lice of­fi­cers to ex­tend the same lev­el of sup­port to the in­com­ing top cop.

To Gue­var­ro, who would have served un­der him dur­ing the past sev­er­al months, Ben­jamin said, “It is about the or­gan­i­sa­tion mov­ing for­ward. We are here to sup­port him and give him all that he needs to do his job suc­cess­ful­ly. The po­lice ser­vice looks for­ward to his con­tri­bu­tion to car­ry us to the next lev­el.”

Asked if he was dis­ap­point­ed at not be­ing named the sub­stan­tive CoP, Ben­jamin said, “It has al­ways been about Team TTPS. It is nev­er about an in­di­vid­ual. We must nev­er fall in love with an of­fice. It is about un­der­stand­ing we are all here to ful­fill a role and a pur­pose.

“I be­lieve my life is or­dered by God and when that pur­pose is ful­filled, the right per­son is placed there and I am re­al­ly glad for every op­por­tu­ni­ty I had.”

For­mer CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher al­so ap­plaud­ed the se­lec­tion of Gue­var­ro.

In a text mes­sage, she said, “Mr Gue­var­ro, by virtue of his job per­for­mance, train­ing and decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the TTPS, is very qual­i­fied and com­pe­tent to as­sume the po­si­tion of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

“Dur­ing my tenure as head of the Spe­cial Branch, he was an out­stand­ing of­fi­cer who per­formed well and con­sis­tent­ly ex­hib­it­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ism and in­tegri­ty in the con­duct of his work.”

She added, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is well poised to ben­e­fit sub­stan­tial­ly from the lead­er­ship of Mr Gue­var­ro at this time. I ex­tend my con­grat­u­la­tions to Mr Gue­var­ro and an­tic­i­pate that he will do very well as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

TTPS So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, al­so warm­ly wel­comed Gue­var­ro as the in­com­ing CoP.

Ex­tend­ing their sup­port, he said, “We, as an as­so­ci­a­tion, com­mit to sup­port­ing his strate­gic di­rec­tion and lead­er­ship, and work­ing with him­self and his ex­ec­u­tive team.”

He al­so thanked the out­go­ing Ben­jamin for his guid­ance since as­sum­ing the post.

More about Gue­var­ro

Gue­var­ro is the last of eight chil­dren and was born in the

re­mote agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage of San­ta Maria, Pe­nal Rock Road, Bas­seterre, Moru­ga.

He ini­tial­ly at­tend­ed the San­ta Maria RC Pri­ma­ry School and trans­ferred to the Princes Town RC School. He went on to St Stephen’s Col­lege, Princes Town, where he grad­u­at­ed with a full cer­tifi­cate and joined the TTPS in 1996.

Af­ter just six months, his sergeant recog­nised Gue­var­ro’s pas­sion for polic­ing and nat­ur­al in­ves­tiga­tive skills, and trans­ferred him to the Spe­cial Branch in 1998. From there, he worked his way up the lad­der to the post se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent rank.