Po­lice of­fi­cers from var­i­ous units and di­vi­sions have start­ed re­turn­ing their Bat­tle Dress Uni­forms (BDUs), al­so called tac­ti­cal wear, to the TTPS stores at Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain.

It’s all part of a change in uni­form pol­i­cy which sees of­fi­cers, aside from those in four spe­cial units, re­turn­ing to the grey and blue kits.

The change which took ef­fect last Fri­day, was or­dered by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, in re­sponse to crim­i­nals dress­ing in cloth­ing re­sem­bling po­lice tac­ti­cal uni­form.

Dur­ing a po­lice me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin an­nounced that on­ly of­fi­cers in elite tac­ti­cal units, (the In­ter-Agency Task Force, the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Task Force and the Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion), would be al­lowed to con­tin­ue wear­ing blue op­er­a­tional uni­forms.  

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said pre­lim­i­nary up­dates from di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders sug­gest­ed that of­fi­cers have been com­pli­ant with the di­rec­tive as sev­er­al op­er­a­tional uni­forms have al­ready been re­ceived. 

Ben­jamin said he could not give a spe­cif­ic fig­ure as to how many uni­forms were re­ceived as of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, but thanked the of­fi­cers for their co-op­er­a­tion de­spite the hes­i­tance from some. 

“Even though there may be those (of­fi­cers), who have some con­cerns, we recog­nise gen­er­al­ly there is that com­pli­ance. 

“We would have giv­en per­sons un­til Wednes­day (Oc­to­ber 23) for full com­pli­ance, be­cause it’s a process see­ing that per­sons are work­ing and it takes a while with the stores. 

“So I be­lieve and I’m cer­tain by Wednes­day we can have that full com­pli­ance. So, so far, so good,” the DCP said. 

He said the uni­forms were re­turned to the TTPS stores where records were tak­en on which of­fi­cers would have re­turned the ap­par­el. 

Pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son agreed that while of­fi­cers have al­ready re­turned their op­er­a­tional uni­forms, he hoped there would be more con­sul­ta­tion with the as­so­ci­a­tion be­fore the pol­i­cy was fi­nalised. 

Asked if he was sur­prised by the de­ci­sion to lim­it the use of tac­ti­cal uni­forms, Dick­son said his re­ac­tion was the same as the pub­lic’s re­sponse, but felt that such an ap­proach was not a so­lu­tion, giv­en the dai­ly de­mands of po­lice of­fi­cers. 

“Putting our Task Force of­fi­cers back in grey and blue is not the best thing at this point in time.  

“There is on­ly so much we could take. 

“Of­fi­cers are hu­man be­ings too.” 

He al­so called on the po­lice lead­er­ship to con­sid­er al­low­ing of­fi­cers as­signed to the Ca­nine Unit to wear the op­er­a­tional uni­forms as it may not be the most fea­si­ble op­tion. 

“Imag­ine a man hold­ing a dog in one hand with his grey and blue on with his for­age cap on and the dog is drag­ging him from point A to point B to try and pick up on a scent. That in it­self is cum­ber­some and con­fus­ing. It’s not ra­tio­nal in the times we are in.” 

Dick­son said he hoped a pol­i­cy on the use of uni­forms could be fi­nalised be­fore Car­ni­val 2025, not­ing that pa­trols would be dif­fi­cult for of­fi­cers wear­ing the tra­di­tion­al uni­forms.