Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher’s tenure came un­der scruti­ny af­ter she was grilled be­fore a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee last week, just a month af­ter her first an­niver­sary in of­fice.

She ad­mit­ted that her first year has been chal­leng­ing in­ter­nal­ly and ex­ter­nal­ly and con­ced­ed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) failed to meet the 11 tar­gets she set out for it to ac­com­plish in 2023.

The tar­gets, among oth­ers, were to re­duce se­ri­ous crimes by 15 per cent, and homi­cides by 20 per cent, as well as to in­crease the homi­cide de­tec­tion rate to 30 per cent.

In­stead, there was a two per cent de­crease in se­ri­ous crimes, a five per cent re­duc­tion in mur­ders and a homi­cide de­tec­tion rate of 14.5 per cent.

Ques­tioned about fail­ing to meet her tar­gets, she ad­mit­ted that the tar­gets were a bit “ex­ag­ger­at­ed” and “stretched.”

But how has the com­mis­sion­er done sta­tis­ti­cal­ly in her first full cal­en­dar year com­pared to the first cal­en­dar years of the six oth­er com­mis­sion­ers who held the post over the last 20 years?

Over­all, when one av­er­ages her rank across the num­ber of mur­ders in a year, the mur­der de­tec­tion rate, the num­ber of rob­beries in a year, the rob­bery de­tec­tion rate, the num­ber of bur­glar­ies and break-ins, the bur­glar­ies and break-ins de­tec­tion rate, the to­tal amount of se­ri­ous crimes and the se­ri­ous crimes de­tec­tion rate, Hare­wood-Cristo­pher ranks high.

She is, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the TTPS’ Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis branch, one of the best in the bunch since Trevor Paul be­came the top cop in 2004.

In her first full year–com­pared with the per­for­mances of the oth­er com­mis­sion­ers in their first full cal­en­dar year—her ad­min­is­tra­tion ranked first in rob­bery de­tec­tion (19.1 per cent), record­ed the low­est num­ber of bur­glar­ies and break-ins (1,663), and record­ed the low­est num­ber of to­tal se­ri­ous crimes (12,678).

Her ad­min­is­tra­tion ranked sec­ond in the de­tec­tion of se­ri­ous crimes (30.3 per cent), be­hind Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob’s 31.8 per cent; ranked sec­ond in bur­glar­ies and break-ins de­tec­tion rates (18.3 per cent), be­hind Ja­cob’s 20 per cent; and record­ed the sec­ond low­est num­ber of rob­beries (2,588), be­hind Ja­cob’s 2,516.

Us­ing the same for­mu­la for the first cal­en­dar year of the com­mis­sion­ers, Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob ranked sec­ond over­all, Gary Grif­fith third, Trevor Paul fourth, Stephen Williams fifth, Dwayne Gibbs sixth and James Philbert sev­enth.

Mur­der rank­ing

How­ev­er, in the cat­e­go­ry up­on which com­mis­sion­ers are ul­ti­mate­ly judged—mur­ders—Hare­wood-Cristo­pher’s per­for­mance does not rank among the best. She falls in the low­er half. She tied for fourth over­all (out of sev­en).

The TTPS un­der Hare­wood-Christo­pher record­ed the sec­ond high­est mur­der rate of all ad­min­is­tra­tions in its first full cal­en­dar year (576), on­ly be­hind Ja­cob’s 605 mur­ders.

In 2023, the TTPS un­der Hare­wood-Christo­pher ranked as the fourth-best ad­min­is­tra­tion in de­tect­ing mur­ders (14.6 per cent), on­ly above Grif­fith, Ja­cob and Philbert.

The com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice with the high­est scores in tack­ling mur­ders dur­ing their first year in of­fice were Trevor Paul and Dwayne Gibbs.

Paul, in 2005, had the high­est homi­cide de­tec­tion rate in his first full year with 24.4 per cent, while the coun­try record­ed the least num­ber of mur­ders in Gibbs’ first full year with 352.

Ja­cob ranked the worst of all the com­mis­sion­ers in ad­dress­ing mur­ders, with his ad­min­is­tra­tion over­see­ing the high­est-ever num­ber of mur­ders in a cal­en­dar year in 2022, as well as the low­est mur­der de­tec­tion rate in a com­mis­sion­er’s first full year of ser­vice with 13 per cent.

When one ex­am­ines the last two decades, the com­mis­sion­er with the high­est mur­der de­tec­tion rate in a year, at any pe­ri­od dur­ing their tenure, was James Philbert in 2009.

Of the 507 mur­ders that year, 137 were de­tect­ed—a de­tec­tion rate of 27 per cent.

The com­mis­sion­er with the low­est an­nu­al mur­der de­tec­tion rate at any pe­ri­od dur­ing their tenure was Gary Grif­fith in 2019. Out of 539 mur­ders, 70 were de­tect­ed, a de­tec­tion rate of 12.9 per cent.

In the last two decades, the ad­min­is­tra­tion that record­ed the largest num­ber of to­tal se­ri­ous crimes in a year, at any point dur­ing their tenure, was Trevor Paul in 2006, with 4,790.

The low­est de­tec­tion rate of se­ri­ous crimes in a year was un­der James Philbert in 2008—16.4 per cent.

Over­all, the TTPS  in the last 20 years has con­sis­tent­ly im­proved its de­tec­tion rates for break-ins and bur­glar­ies, while in the last five years, de­tec­tion rates for rob­beries and to­tal se­ri­ous crimes are at an all-time high fol­low­ing a de­cline from 2009 to 2013.

How­ev­er, the de­tec­tion rates for mur­ders have steadi­ly and con­sis­tent­ly de­clined since 2004.

The av­er­age an­nu­al homi­cide de­tec­tion rate be­tween 2019 and 2023 is just 14.6 per cent; be­tween 2014 to 2018, it was 17.4 per cent; be­tween 2010 and 2013–20.5 per cent; and be­tween 2004 to 2008–21.5 per cent.

The num­bers mean, sim­ply, that more mur­der­ers are walk­ing free.

Con­firm­ing Er­la

Af­ter long be­ing ru­moured as the Gov­ern­ment’s pre­ferred op­tion as the next sub­stan­tive Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Hare­wood-Cristo­pher be­gan act­ing as CoP in De­cem­ber 2022 af­ter the pre­vi­ous act­ing CoP Ja­cob went on pre-re­tire­ment leave.

On Feb­ru­ary 3, she be­came the coun­try’s first fe­male Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice when Par­lia­ment unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved the nom­i­na­tion of the Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (her of­fi­cial rank at the time).

The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion had iden­ti­fied Hare­wood-Cristo­pher as its top can­di­date for the post. Dur­ing the par­lia­men­tary de­bate, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­ject­ed the Op­po­si­tion’s claims that the CoP was ap­point­ed be­cause of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

Hare­wood-Cristo­pher was ini­tial­ly set to re­tire in May 2023 when she turned 60 years old, but pro­vi­sions were made for her to act on a con­trac­tu­al ba­sis. She was grant­ed a one-year ex­ten­sion from May 15, 2023, un­til May 24, 2024.

“The ex­ten­sion will be for one year in the first in­stance and there­after, sub­ject to an an­nu­al re­view, for a max­i­mum of two fur­ther pe­ri­ods of one year each, ac­cord­ing to the ac­tion for the en­gage­ment of Her Ex­cel­len­cy, the Pres­i­dent in this re­gard,” Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Hinds said in May.

The ex­ten­sion faced a le­gal chal­lenge by op­po­si­tion ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj, but a judge ruled last month that the CoP’s con­tract was law­ful.

Short­ly af­ter be­ing con­firmed in Feb­ru­ary, the CoP promised to re­duce the num­ber of mur­ders in the short term, with­in three months.

Ap­pear­ing be­fore a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee in Feb­ru­ary 2023, she said: “We’d ex­pect to see a change in the mur­der rate short-term by June, and long-term by De­cem­ber.”

Turn­ing to God

In March, to the be­muse­ment of some, the CoP claimed the coun­try was deal­ing with an un­nat­ur­al evil as brazen crim­i­nals wreaked hav­oc on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens–from mur­ders to rob­beries, home in­va­sions, to car­jack­ings. With­out di­vine in­ter­ven­tion, she said, the TTPS’ at­tempts to re­duce mur­ders and crime would fail.

“An evil has spread over the land and we must recog­nise, those of you who are spir­i­tu­al­ly in­clined, you must recog­nise that this is be­yond the phys­i­cal and un­less we seek the in­ter­ven­tion of that greater spir­it, what­ev­er we may call him, we know we have dif­fer­ent re­li­gions, so who will call him God, who will call him Al­lah, or Kr­ish­na, all of us, if not all of us, 99 per cent of us be­lieve in a su­pe­ri­or be­ing and we need to in­voke the help of that be­ing if we need to re­al­ly bring Trinidad and To­ba­go back to that place where we want it to be,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher prayed.

Be­tween March and June, there were 184 mur­ders. That was the high­est num­ber of mur­ders re­port­ed for that pe­ri­od in the last decade.

Be­tween Ju­ly and the end of De­cem­ber, there were an­oth­er 238 mur­ders.

That fig­ure, how­ev­er, showed 108 few­er mur­ders for the same pe­ri­od in 2022 (the high­est mur­der toll in the coun­try’s his­to­ry).

In No­vem­ber 2023, with the mur­der toll al­ready past 500, Hare­wood-Christo­pher faced crit­i­cisms as sev­er­al se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der, were sent on leave. Alexan­der was sent on leave for 733 days. Al­so sent on leave were se­nior su­per­in­ten­dents Anand Rame­sar, Bri­an Ram­phlal, Richard Smith, Os­wain Subero and oth­ers.

“It is not like what peo­ple are think­ing—like it is some clan­des­tine thing. The Com­mis­sion­er is just do­ing her ad­min­is­tra­tive du­ties and stag­ger­ing the of­fi­cers who need to go on leave,” Smith told Guardian Me­dia in No­vem­ber.

The com­mis­sion­er said she had no choice but to send the se­nior of­fi­cers on leave, as they were close to burnout.

In mid-No­vem­ber, 18 mem­bers of three ma­jor gangs, in­clud­ing the Sixx gang, were held by po­lice in “gang sweeps” in Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons.

The raids were in re­sponse to shoot­ings and mur­ders in Bel­mont and St Ann’s. The 11 men held were re­leased, while sev­en were charged with loi­ter­ing. None were charged with the vi­o­lent crimes they were sus­pect­ed of be­ing in­volved with.

New year, same prayer

In the new year, 2024, as the mur­ders showed no signs of slow­ing down from 2023, the CoP ap­pealed once again for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion.

Dur­ing the TTPS’ an­nu­al in­ter­faith ser­vice, she stressed the need for God’s sup­port in any an­ti-crime ef­fort.

“We come and ac­knowl­edge the su­prema­cy of God and the im­por­tant role he has to play for us in achiev­ing our man­date. We know all that we have gone through and we know with God’s grace and with his help, we will suc­ceed. The tides will turn and we will see the suc­cess we de­sire,” she said.

Last month, hun­dreds of po­lice of­fi­cers an­nounced their in­ten­tion to sue Hare­wood-Cristo­pher over a pro­mo­tion fi­as­co. Af­ter re­ceiv­ing their pro­mo­tion marks, scores of po­lice of­fi­cers said that of­fi­cers who scored less than them were pro­mot­ed ahead of them.

An of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia that of­fi­cers who were on sus­pen­sion and mur­der charges were among those pro­mot­ed. Some of­fi­cers claimed the process was cor­rupt­ed.

The threat of le­gal ac­tion came a month af­ter the T&T Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion wrote to the CoP re­gard­ing an in­ter­nal memo cit­ing the er­ro­neous pro­mo­tion of po­lice con­sta­bles to cor­po­rals.

In the memo, the CoP called on Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ram­nar­ine Sama­roo to in­ves­ti­gate how and why some of­fi­cers were in­cor­rect­ly pro­mot­ed.

The CoP apol­o­gised for the er­ror in at least two sep­a­rate in­ter­nal mem­os.

She promised to ad­dress the mat­ter.

Last week, TTPS Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Joanne Archie said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was near com­ple­tion.

It was then re­port­ed that Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Cristo­pher agreed to stop pro­mo­tions from the po­si­tion of con­sta­ble to cor­po­ral fol­low­ing the threat of le­gal ac­tion against her.

Most re­cent­ly, last Thurs­day, the CoP is­sued a press re­lease in which she stat­ed that the TTPS is ‘very en­gaged’ in ad­dress­ing the high rate of homi­cides ex­pe­ri­enced so far in Jan­u­ary 2024.

“This is of ma­jor con­cern to us and we have not­ed the pub­lic’s ap­peals to the po­lice to do some­thing. We have im­ple­ment­ed strin­gent mea­sures to bring an im­me­di­ate end to this es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lent crime. Our analy­sis shows that most of the mur­ders com­mit­ted have been ei­ther gang or drug-re­lat­ed.

“We have been ac­tive­ly tar­get­ing gang lead­ers and their mem­bers frontal­ly, and I give the as­sur­ance that we will con­tin­ue to do so un­til we achieve an end to these sense­less killings,” the re­lease stat­ed.

On Jan­u­ary 19, the com­mis­sion­er was or­dered by the High Court to de­cide by May 16 whether 33 firearm user’s li­cences would be grant­ed.

The High Court ruled that the CoP breached her statu­to­ry du­ty un­der Sec­tion 17 of the Firearms Act to grant or de­ny per­mits to ap­pli­cants who re­ceived pro­vi­sion­al li­cences and cer­tifi­cates of com­pe­ten­cy.

The ap­pli­cants have all been wait­ing be­tween 22 to 35 months for the CoP’s de­ci­sion. Hare­wood-Cristo­pher’s le­gal team ar­gued that COVID-19, an in­ter­nal au­dit in­to the Firearm Unit and hav­ing to process 50,000 FUL ap­pli­ca­tions were re­spon­si­ble for the de­lay. The ar­gu­ment was re­ject­ed by the court.

The com­mis­sion­er faced more in­ter­nal pres­sure last week. This af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers faced an­oth­er de­lay in re­ceiv­ing back pay for salary in­creas­es and with con­tin­ued con­cerns over pro­mo­tions, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion threat­ened a sick-out dur­ing Car­ni­val. Hare­wood-Cristo­pher asked the as­so­ci­a­tion and its mem­bers to re­con­sid­er this po­ten­tial course of ac­tion.

The rank­ings

The rank­ings were based on sta­tis­tics for the first full cal­en­dar year of all sev­en po­lice com­mis­sion­ers since 2004.

Num­ber of Mur­ders (From low­est to high­est)

1) Dwayne Gibbs in 2011-352 mur­ders

2) Trevor Paul in 2005-386 mur­ders

3) Stephen Williams in 2013-408 mur­ders

4) Gary Grif­fith in 2019-539 mur­ders

5) James Philbert in 2008-547 mur­ders

6) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher in 2023-576 mur­ders

7) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob in 2022-605 mur­ders

Mur­der De­tec­tion Rate

1) Trevor Paul-24.4%

2) Dwayne Gibbs-22.4%

3) Stephen Williams-15.2%

4) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher-14.6%

5) James Philbert-13.2%

6) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob-13%

7) Gary Grif­fith-12.9%

Num­ber of Bur­glar­ies/Break-ins

(Low­est num­ber of of­fences ranks high­est)

1) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher-1,633

2) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob-1,733

3) Gary Grif­fith-2,217

4) Stephen Williams-2,967

5) Dwayne Gibbs-4,220

6) Trevor Paul-4,582

7) James Philbert-4,855

Bur­glar­ies/Break-ins De­tec­tion Rate

1) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob-20%

2) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher-18.3%

3) Gary Grif­fith-15%

4) Trevor Paul-14.4%

5) Dwayne Gibbs-12.6%

6) Stephen Williams-11.8%

7) James Philbert-9.6%

Num­ber of Rob­beries

(Low­est num­ber of of­fences ranks high­est)

1) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob-2,516

2) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher-2,588

3) Stephen Williams-2,958

4) Gary Grif­fith-3,018

5) Dwayne Gibbs-3,718

6) Trevor Paul-4,868

7) James Philbert-5,043

Rob­bery De­tec­tion Rates

1) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher-19.1%

2) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob-19%

3) Trevor Paul-18.7%

4) Gary Grif­fith-17.3%

5) Stephen Williams-14.2%

6) Dwayne Gibbs-11.7%

7) James Philbert-11.2%

To­tal Se­ri­ous Crimes

(Low­est num­ber of of­fences ranks high­est)

1) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher-12,678

2) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob-12,802

3) Stephen Williams-13,147

4) Gary Grif­fith-13,179

5) Dwayne Gibbs-15,877

6) Trevor Paul-17,989

7) James Philbert-20,566

Se­ri­ous Crimes De­tec­tion Rates

1) Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob-31.8%

2) Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher-30.3%

3) Gary Grif­fith-30.2%

4) Trevor Paul-26%

5) Dwayne Gibbs-18.8%

6) Stephen Williams-18%

7) James Philbert-16.4%