JENSEN LA VENDE

From to­day, the ma­jor­i­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers around the coun­try must wear on­ly the reg­u­lar grey shirt and blue pants and de­sist from us­ing po­lice op­er­a­tional wear, com­mon­ly called tac­ti­cal cloth­ing.

This was an­nounced by the TTPS yes­ter­day af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher banned the blan­ket use of po­lice op­er­a­tional wear as a re­sponse to the fact that crim­i­nals were al­so us­ing it to com­mit il­le­gal acts. It is the sec­ond time this year she has is­sued a pro­hi­bi­tion.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin read a mem­o­ran­dum to all se­nior of­fi­cers man­dat­ing that on­ly four units were now au­tho­rised to use the tac­ti­cal wear.

“With ef­fect from Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 18, on­ly the un­der­men­tioned units are au­tho­rised to wear the tac­ti­cal uni­form, (Guard and Emer­gency Branch, In­ter-Agency Task Force, Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Task Force and Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion). All oth­er of­fi­cers as­signed to di­vi­sions, branch­es, sec­tions and units, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the di­vi­sion­al task forces, must be ap­pro­pri­ate­ly at­tired in Pa­trol Or­der num­ber 3,” he said.

The is­sue of po­lice tac­ti­cal wear in the hands of crim­i­nals has re­ceived na­tion­al at­ten­tion af­ter kid­nap­pings and home in­va­sions were car­ried out by heav­i­ly armed men wear­ing "po­lice cloth­ing."

Ben­jamin said the TTPS had not­ed the num­ber of in­stances of fake po­lice and the memo was a “dras­tic stance” to ad­dress this.

The CoP had al­so is­sued a memo ban­ning the use of the tac­ti­cal wear in Jan­u­ary.

Yes­ter­day, ACP Richard Smith said the crim­i­nals were “des­e­crat­ing our uni­forms.”

All of­fi­cers who have the tac­ti­cal wear but are not as­signed to the four units must re­turn them on or be­fore Oc­to­ber 23 or face in­ter­nal dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion, which ranges from pay cuts to dis­missal.

Smith al­so had a warn­ing for crim­i­nals.

“I am say­ing to the crim­i­nals, you want uni­form, take the uni­form but wear it at your own per­il be­cause you won’t be wear­ing it for long,” he said.

To en­sure the con­fu­sion be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by mem­bers of the pub­lic re­gard­ing fake and re­al po­lice, Ben­jamin said of­fi­cers in tac­ti­cal wear will be ac­com­pa­nied by of­fi­cers in dig­i­tal cam­ou­flage or the reg­u­lar grey shirt and blue pants as a mea­sure to as­sure the pub­lic of their le­git­i­ma­cy. The of­fi­cers will al­so be dis­play­ing their badges.

Ben­jamin ad­vised that if cit­i­zens are un­easy, they should call the near­est po­lice sta­tion. He re­mind­ed the coun­try that hav­ing po­lice uni­forms with­out the nec­es­sary au­tho­ri­sa­tion is a crim­i­nal of­fence and comes with a $30,000 fine or im­pris­on­ment of up to three years.

Mean­while, ACP Smith added that fake po­lice of­fi­cers have al­so been en­gag­ing in ex­tor­tion and have been de­mand­ing be­tween $30,000 to $60,000 month­ly from busi­ness own­ers.

Asked about the use of swiv­el lights by crim­i­nals, Ben­jamin said this too is be­ing tack­led by po­lice.

“We are work­ing on that with the li­cens­ing au­thor­i­ty,” he as­sured.

‘Ban not enough’

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion mem­ber and crim­i­nol­o­gist Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran said more should be done aside from ban­ning of­fi­cers from don­ning tac­ti­cal wear.

“I don’t think that that prob­lem can be changed by just chang­ing the uni­forms. Be­cause what­ev­er you change, they (crim­i­nals) will al­ways get the uni­forms of one kind or the oth­er. There has to be a new method of po­lice uni­forms and who should wear it and if the uni­forms are enough or if you need a big badge to be im­print­ed on the uni­forms that will val­i­date the au­thor­i­ty. So we can’t just say change the uni­forms.”