Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

This month, in the space of a week, two po­lice of­fi­cers were mur­dered in sep­a­rate, un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dents while work­ing part-time as se­cu­ri­ty guards.

PC Jerome Bleas­dell was shot dead as he was get­ting in­to a car af­ter fin­ish­ing work at a su­per­mar­ket on the East­ern Main Road, San Juan, on Oc­to­ber 12. Days lat­er, on the night of Oc­to­ber 19, PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son was gunned down by ban­dits as he sat out­side the Awe­some Food and Drinks Su­per­mar­ket on Olton Road, Ari­ma.

They were not the on­ly po­lice of­fi­cers killed while work­ing as pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers in re­cent times.

On Christ­mas Eve 2019, PC Nicholas Vic­tor was gunned down while work­ing as a se­cu­ri­ty guard at a Ca­roni gro­cery. His li­censed pis­tol was al­so stolen dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

Weeks ear­li­er, on De­cem­ber 1, 50-year-old Sgt Roger Williams of the Court and Process Branch, was struck by a stray bul­let near the casi­no where he worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard on Char­lotte Street. A woman Na­toya Chris­t­ian, 31, was killed dur­ing that at­tack.

Work­ing as pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty is usu­al­ly the sim­plest and most con­ve­nient part-time job avail­able for of­fi­cers in op­er­a­tional units. Still, the preva­lence of crime in T&T means that they might be at greater risk out of uni­form than when on du­ty.

Kevin Ram­roop (not his re­al name) al­ways knew the dan­gers of be­com­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer.

Over ten years he has worked in the North East­ern, Cen­tral and Port of Spain Di­vi­sions, he has been shot at, in­volved in car chas­es and was al­most mauled by a pit bull while en­ter­ing some­one’s prop­er­ty dur­ing a raid.

Kevin said while the risk of po­lice work is clear, his biggest un­ease comes while he is at his part-time job.

For al­most as long as he has been a po­lice of­fi­cer, Kevin has worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard at a Chi­nese-owned gro­cery.

He spends most days on the look­out for shoplifters and help­ing cus­tomers find park­ing, but there is al­ways the threat of an armed rob­bery.

This year has been one of the most dan­ger­ous for po­lice of­fi­cers with three shot and six mur­dered in in­ci­dents as of Thurs­day evening.

Work­ing as pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty adds to the dan­ger for po­lice of­fi­cers but Kevin said the ex­tra cash is need­ed more than ever by of­fi­cers strug­gling to make ends meet.

Dur­ing a Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Par­lia­ment on Oc­to­ber 11, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds an­nounced that the TTPS was work­ing to re­duce their spend­ing on over­time while try­ing to get more pro­duc­tiv­i­ty from of­fi­cers dur­ing their reg­u­lar work­ing hours.

“The Com­mis­sion­er is man­dat­ed to re­arrange the af­fairs of the de­ploy­ments and shifts and all that she must do as leader of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to gain more from the of­fi­cers in their nor­mal work­ing hours so as to sup­press and to re­duce the need for over­time,” he said.

Un­der the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, of­fi­cers are not al­lowed to have oth­er jobs with­out au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Com­mis­sion­er.

Kevin said he is paid in cash at a rate of $50 an hour, which usu­al­ly amounts to $6000 per month. He said he needs this ad­di­tion­al in­come as his TTPS salary bare­ly cov­ers all of his month­ly ex­pens­es for rent, gro­ceries, fu­el for his car and child care.

He ex­plained: “My girl­friend and I usu­al­ly split the bill for a lot of our liv­ing ex­pens­es. I drop our son off at day­care and then I take her to work.

“From there I take a maxi to work and meet her at her work­place af­ter a shift to head back home, all to avoid burn­ing fu­el, but re­al­ly and tru­ly there’s on­ly so far that mon­ey can go.”

On the in­cre­men­tal salary scale, which shows the ba­sic salaries of po­lice of­fi­cers, a con­sta­ble earns rough­ly $6,973. De­pend­ing on their length of ser­vice, they could make up to $9,739, it was not the case for sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers who have not re­ceived their in­cre­ments.

Kevin says the sit­u­a­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly dire for sus­pend­ed po­lice of­fi­cers who re­ceive on­ly part of their salary and are des­per­ate for ad­di­tion­al in­come.

Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion: Po­lice du­ties must come first

Pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son said he did not have in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest that more po­lice of­fi­cers are seek­ing part-time jobs. While he was sym­pa­thet­ic about the fi­nan­cial strain ex­pe­ri­enced by some of­fi­cers, he in­sist­ed that part-time work should not af­fect their per­for­mance on du­ty.

Re­fer­ring to the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions which bars of­fi­cers from “skip­ping work” to do pri­vate jobs, Dick­son said a will­ing, com­pe­tent po­lice work­force is need­ed now more than ever. While there is noth­ing wrong with of­fi­cers want­i­ng to earn ex­tra mon­ey legal­ly, he urged them to fol­low the nec­es­sary pro­to­cols.

“Don’t com­pro­mise and sac­ri­fice your liveli­hood, your job se­cu­ri­ty, by go­ing and do­ing some­thing that you weren’t giv­en ap­proval to do,” he said.

Dick­son ad­mit­ted that the process for ap­ply­ing for ex­tra du­ty has be­come more com­pli­cat­ed in re­cent years and urged the TTPS lead­er­ship to re­view it with of­fi­cers’ con­ve­nience in mind.

“The process has be­come a lit­tle more bu­reau­crat­ic and is caus­ing of­fi­cers some hard­ship,” he said.

“Ex­tra du­ty, as the name sug­gests, means that when the of­fi­cers work, they should get paid al­most im­me­di­ate­ly and it be­comes awk­ward when of­fi­cers in the Fire Ser­vice per­form sim­i­lar ex­tra du­ty for the same time are paid im­me­di­ate­ly, but the po­lice must wait up to months be­fore they can get their dues.”

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns about a cut­back in over­time for po­lice of­fi­cers, Dick­son said while such de­ci­sions are with­in the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s re­mit, of­fi­cers are en­ti­tled to com­pen­sa­tion once they work be­yond their hours.

He said of­fi­cers would nat­u­ral­ly be re­quired to take on more du­ties than usu­al which may ex­ceed work­ing hours if there were short­ages in man­pow­er.

“Just how we work we’ll be mak­ing over­time and once en­quiries are con­duct­ed on in­ves­ti­ga­tions that are tak­ing place, of­fi­cers will be re­quired to go be­yond, but the sit­u­a­tion be­comes more am­pli­fied when you have a short­age of a labour force and have a crime pan­dem­ic to man­age.

He asked: “Speak­ing about cut­ting back on over­time and not ac­tu­al­ly see­ing the val­ue of the of­fi­cers go­ing be­yond if those of­fi­cers weren’t go­ing be­yond what would have been the sit­u­a­tion for T&T right now?”

Dick­son said at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my re­cruits are taught fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy and how to man­age their in­come.

Se­cu­ri­ty guards face more dan­ger than cops.

Pres­i­dent of the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) Deryck Richard­son said he was not sur­prised at the con­cerns raised by po­lice of­fi­cers as he has re­peat­ed­ly high­light­ed the dan­gers faced by se­cu­ri­ty guards.

In ad­di­tion to lim­it­ed equip­ment and re­sources, guards con­tend with more brazen crim­i­nals who ex­er­cise no re­straint, he said.

Crim­i­nals might be hes­i­tant to at­tack po­lice of­fi­cers on du­ty for fear of the con­se­quences but se­cu­ri­ty guards are not seen in the same way, Richard­son point­ed out.

“We work at the busi­ness­places where the ban­dits are com­ing to rob. Some­one who comes with ne­far­i­ous in­ten­tions to rob an es­tab­lish­ment, his first or­der of busi­ness is to take out the se­cu­ri­ty and then they are free to do what they want,” he said.

“The dan­ger es­tate con­sta­bles face is most pro­nounced when you see the num­ber of se­cu­ri­ty guards who have been killed com­pared to po­lice of­fi­cers over the last num­ber of years.”

Kevin said the dan­ger is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant for off-du­ty of­fi­cers who do not al­ways have guns while on du­ty. Of­fi­cers on pa­trol usu­al­ly have the back­ing of ten of­fi­cers with au­to­mat­ic weapons and body ar­mour but the sit­u­a­tion was dif­fer­ent for se­cu­ri­ty guards at a busi­ness­place.

How­ev­er, more of his col­leagues are seek­ing part-time jobs.

“It is ris­ing and will con­tin­ue to rise be­cause our salary isn’t in­creas­ing and things are get­ting more ex­pen­sive,” Kevin said.

“We try to make ends meet by do­ing some­thing le­git­i­mate but there are oth­ers who will want to do some­thing il­le­gal.

“We don’t want that for our­selves be­cause it al­most al­ways leads to trou­ble but there aren’t many op­tions out­side of that.”

Richard­son said he is not aware that more po­lice of­fi­cers are seek­ing part-time jobs as se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers but raised con­cerns about claims that some off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cers are be­ing paid sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er wages than sen­tries from a se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny.

This may be due to the per­cep­tion that po­lice of­fi­cers were more com­pe­tent and ef­fi­cient at pre­vent­ing rob­beries, al­though once out­num­bered any­one could be in dan­ger.

“They come at se­cu­ri­ty with greater num­bers and AR 15s and those kinds of weapons. When you hire some­one di­rect­ly, there are no oth­er de­duc­tions that have to be paid.

“If you hire some­one through a se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny the com­pa­ny may take $50 (an hour) and pay you $20,” he said.

Dick­son agreed with Richard­son but felt po­lice of­fi­cers in a pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty set­ting are at sig­nif­i­cant risk.

“Whether it’s a trained se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer or a trained po­lice of­fi­cer, crimes of op­por­tu­ni­ties, once these op­por­tu­ni­ties present them­selves and these per­sons see a weak tar­get, they will do what­ev­er they can to achieve their goal.

“They don’t give any con­sid­er­a­tion as to whether you are po­lice, se­cu­ri­ty or even the av­er­age civil­ian go­ing to buy your gro­ceries,” he said.

In the in­ci­dent in which PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son was killed, two by­standers were shot in their feet with stray bul­lets fired by the ban­dits.

Richard­son has re­peat­ed­ly ad­vo­cat­ed for the well-be­ing of se­cu­ri­ty guards fol­low­ing vi­o­lent rob­beries, par­tic­u­lar­ly the mur­ders of Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stu­art in the chaot­ic Pen­ny­wise Plaza heist in La Ro­maine in 2022.

He ar­gues that se­cu­ri­ty guards should be more ad­e­quate­ly equipped to de­fend them­selves giv­en the evolv­ing crim­i­nal threat.

As T&T’s mur­der toll is ex­pect­ed to surge past last year’s fig­ure, the need for strong se­cu­ri­ty net­works re­mains.

Kevin said he takes his job as a po­lice of­fi­cer se­ri­ous­ly but he has no in­ten­tions of stop­ping his work as a part-time se­cu­ri­ty guard. His son will be start­ing pri­ma­ry school soon and life for his fam­i­ly will be­come more ex­pen­sive.

Cops wound­ed or killed this year (put in box)

• Jan­u­ary: Off-du­ty po­lice­man PC Ravin­dra Har­ri­nar­ine was shot and killed out­side a friend’s home on Bassie Street, Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn. His li­censed pis­tol was stolen by the gun­men.

• Feb­ru­ary: Cpl Mar­lone Mitchell, was shot and killed when his li­censed pis­tol was wres­tled from his grip by an­oth­er man dur­ing a heat­ed ex­change. The man lat­er sur­ren­dered to the po­lice with his at­tor­ney and re­turned Mar­lone’s gun.

• March: Lar­ry Phillip, 51, a sergeant in the po­lice band was one of four peo­ple gunned down in Harpe Place, east Port-of-Spain, dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing.

• May: PC Dale May­ers, 53, was gunned down when he tried to thwart a rob­bery at a Long­denville bar where he was lim­ing.

• Ju­ly: PC Shakala Charles of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) was shot when a round of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion pierced his bul­let­proof vest. Charles and oth­er of­fi­cers were re­spond­ing to a re­port of a shoot­ing on St Paul Street, east Port-of-Spain, at the time.

• Ju­ly: A 39-year-old off-du­ty po­lice­man was shot in his right arm by ban­dits who tried to rob him in Barataria.

• Oc­to­ber 12: PC Jerome Bleas­dell was shot and killed as he was leav­ing a San Juan su­per­mar­ket where he worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

• Oc­to­ber 19: PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son was gunned down when he con­front­ed ban­dits out­side an Ari­ma gro­cery where he worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

• Oc­to­ber 22: PC Quian­na Ma­habir of the TTPS band was shot in her head out­side her Cunu­pia home. She is ward­ed at hos­pi­tal in se­ri­ous con­di­tion.