JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin says the im­me­di­ate can­cel­la­tion of all leave for po­lice of­fi­cers yes­ter­day was just a pre­cau­tion and bore no re­la­tion to the height­ened alert the De­fence Force was placed on.

Ben­jamin, who has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ad­min­is­tra­tion in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, said based on all that was shared on so­cial and tra­di­tion­al me­dia, the ex­ec­u­tive de­cid­ed to stop the leave of all of­fi­cers.

“That was just a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure that we took. Based on all that we were hear­ing, we thought it was nec­es­sary to take that pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure and stop leave to­tal­ly be­cause we had quite a num­ber of leave on the desk. So, that in the event that any­thing might hap­pen, that we would be able to have enough man­pow­er with­in the ser­vice to en­sure that at least we’re able to ros­ter per­sons and don’t have that kind of burnout,” Ben­jamin said.

Asked if there was any­thing that the coun­try should be con­cerned about, giv­en his com­ment that the leave can­cel­la­tion was a pre­cau­tion, Ben­jamin said no.

“We are look­ing at the same nor­mal pre­cau­tion. That’s what we hear on the news, but we have ab­solute­ly noth­ing, ab­solute­ly noth­ing.”

How­ev­er, Ben­jamin added that the tele­phone or­der from ACP Curt Si­mon that re­called all spe­cial re­serve po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs) from their va­ca­tion was lat­er re­scind­ed.

He said the ini­tial or­der was done in er­ror, as it was un­re­al­is­tic to re­call all SRPs from their va­ca­tion and oth­er non-emer­gency leave.

“It’s not that we are call­ing off any­body from leave. It’s those who ap­ply to go on leave, those who are sup­posed to go on leave. If you’re al­ready on leave, we’re not ask­ing you to come out. At least we’re not reach­ing that stage as yet,” Ben­jamin said.

The TTPS’ de­ci­sion to stop leave co­in­cid­ed with the De­fence Force’s re­call of all its mem­bers to base, in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia re­ports of an im­mi­nent strike by the US against Venezuela and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty is­su­ing an in­ter­nal memo an­nounc­ing the clo­sure of its head of­fice in St Joseph due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

The in­ci­dents cre­at­ed pan­ic among cit­i­zens, some of whom took off work ear­li­er than usu­al and oth­ers who went to col­lect their chil­dren from school be­fore of­fi­cial dis­missal.