Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

In less than a month, there have been three in­ci­dents where peo­ple were kid­napped or killed by crim­i­nals wear­ing po­lice op­er­a­tional wear. For the year so far, there have been at least nine in­ci­dents where crim­i­nals dis­guised as po­lice of­fi­cers com­mit­ted rob­beries, as­saults, kid­nap­pings, and even mur­ders.

The trend of crim­i­nals im­per­son­at­ing po­lice of­fi­cers is not new, as po­lice op­er­a­tional kits have been dis­cov­ered among il­le­gal arms and am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing raids for years.

In the most re­cent in­ci­dent on Oc­to­ber 8, po­lice found and seized two po­lice jack­ets, a pair of tac­ti­cal trousers, caps, a po­lice bul­let­proof vest, and strobe lights.

In May, the uni­forms of three of­fi­cers as­signed to the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) were stolen from their lock­ers at the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence in St Ann’s. As of Thurs­day af­ter­noon, no one was ar­rest­ed for the theft, as the mat­ter is still be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Dur­ing a po­lice me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin an­nounced that on­ly the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF), the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tion Task Force (NOTF), and the Mul­ti Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPs) were al­lowed to wear tac­ti­cal uni­forms.

As he read from a TTPS mem­o­ran­dum that was is­sued that af­ter­noon, Ben­jamin said of­fi­cers as­signed to di­vi­sions, branch sec­tions, and units were re­quired to wear their grey and blue uni­forms. Ben­jamin added that op­er­a­tional uni­forms pre­vi­ous­ly used by di­vi­sions should be re­turned to the po­lice ser­vice but could not say ex­act­ly how many uni­forms were ex­pect­ed to be re­ceived.

How­ev­er, the avail­abil­i­ty of op­er­a­tional wear through lo­cal re­tail­ers and pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies means that even with­out hav­ing to bor­row or steal le­git­i­mate po­lice uni­forms, crim­i­nals can ac­cess cloth­ing that is con­vinc­ing enough to de­ceive the pub­lic.

Tac­ti­cal kits or Bat­tle Dress Uni­forms (BDUs) are sold at se­cu­ri­ty sup­ply stores and even road­side ven­dors in cer­tain ar­eas. It may cost ban­dits as lit­tle as $1,000 to look the part of a po­lice of­fi­cer. This price cov­ers the cost of the BDU, com­bat boots, shoul­der patch­es, and a cap.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee sit­ting in Jan­u­ary, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she was con­cerned over the trend of crim­i­nals mas­querad­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers, not­ing that of­fi­cers were asked to wear their grey and blue uni­forms to­geth­er with their of­fi­cial TTPS badges.

She not­ed, how­ev­er, that the po­lice op­er­a­tional wear or cloth­ing sim­i­lar in ap­pear­ance was sold at re­tail­ers across T&T and sought the Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port in clamp­ing down on this prac­tice.

How­ev­er, com­mit­tee chair­man Kei­th Scot­land, now Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, not­ed that the unau­tho­rised use of po­lice uni­forms, like cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, was pro­hib­it­ed.

“You don’t need any in­ter­ven­tion. Charge ... If there is a chal­lenge, that’s why there is a judge and a mag­is­trate.”

No re­stric­tions on sale of tac­ti­cal wear

But while po­lice have re­peat­ed­ly seized cam­ou­flage cloth­ing and ac­ces­sories from lo­cal stores, sim­i­lar ac­tion has not been tak­en against stores that sell tac­ti­cal cloth­ing once they do not car­ry the of­fi­cial TTPS in­signia.

One lo­cal re­tail­er of se­cu­ri­ty sup­plies and tac­ti­cal ap­par­el told Guardian Me­dia that while it is his com­pa­ny’s pol­i­cy to re­quest of­fi­cial po­lice iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and au­tho­ri­sa­tion let­ters from cus­tomers buy­ing BDUs, it was not law.

He added that it was pos­si­ble for re­tail­ers else­where to sell tac­ti­cal cloth­ing with­out re­quest­ing of­fi­cial ID. The re­tail­er not­ed that op­er­a­tional wear used by po­lice and pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms was usu­al­ly sold lo­cal­ly for about $300, with mi­nor price fluc­tu­a­tions de­pend­ing on which store they vis­it­ed.

He ar­gued that while the TTPS could not re­al­is­ti­cal­ly mon­i­tor the sale of the items, they had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure their of­fi­cers were equipped with unique uni­forms that dis­tin­guished them from im­posters.

“You have peo­ple buy­ing fab­ric and mak­ing their own BDUs from scratch; that’s not the is­sue. The is­sue is that the Gov­ern­ment hasn’t reg­u­larised a uni­form and fails to ad­e­quate­ly sup­ply the of­fi­cers with uni­forms.”

A search of ama­zon.com shows that sev­er­al vari­a­tions of BDUs are avail­able for sale. But even apart from buy­ing or tai­lor­ing “home­made” uni­forms, crim­i­nals al­so have the op­tion of print­ing the po­lice lo­go on­to cloth­ing.

Se­cu­ri­ty cam­era footage from the kid­nap­ping of Su­vesh Ram­nar­ine in Cunu­pia last week­end showed his at­tack­ers wore po­lo shirts and caps that bore the of­fi­cial TTPS em­blem.

One store that spe­cialis­es in the print­ing of T-shirts and ap­par­el in east Trinidad said they typ­i­cal­ly re­ceived or­ders from po­lice of­fi­cers for sports days and oth­er recre­ation­al events but re­quest­ed of­fi­cial doc­u­ments au­tho­ris­ing cus­tomers from the TTPS for such prod­ucts.

“We try to keep it as le­git­i­mate as pos­si­ble be­cause we’re a small busi­ness and we don’t want any prob­lems. But that’s just us; we can’t say for cer­tain how oth­er places car­ry about their busi­ness.”

The clerk added that the print­ers could al­so be or­dered for peo­ple to print their items with­out hav­ing to go to a com­pa­ny.

LED lights pro­grammed to emit blue lights

Guardian Me­dia spoke with busi­ness­man and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist In­shan Ish­mael, who said while the im­por­ta­tion of blue swiv­el lights used on the roof of marked po­lice cars was pro­hib­it­ed, LED lights that could be pro­grammed to emit blue lights could be in­stalled on the dash­boards of ve­hi­cles.

Ish­mael, whose com­pa­ny, the Roll On Roll Off Cen­tre, has done main­te­nance work for po­lice ve­hi­cles in the past, said such lights could not be eas­i­ly de­tect­ed by the au­thor­i­ties when pack­aged, as they ap­peared colour­less when in­ac­tive.

“You need per­mis­sion to im­port blue­lights; you can’t just im­port it, but some lights aren’t coloured blue; they ap­pear clear or trans­par­ent, mean­ing you don’t see the colour un­less the blue LED is turned on.

“Peo­ple can im­port it and just de­scribe it as an LED light, so it pass­es through Cus­toms with­out any is­sue, so it’s dif­fi­cult for the Cus­toms agent to de­tect that if they just look at it. The ones that are eas­i­er to pick up are the ones that have the plas­tic lens that is coloured blue.”

Ish­mael said there was no straight­for­ward way of ad­dress­ing the prob­lem of po­lice im­per­son­ators, as any­one could be in­volved in as­sist­ing crim­i­nals with tai­lor­ing po­lice uni­forms.

Dur­ing Thurs­day’s me­dia brief­ing, ACP Ad­min­is­tra­tion Richard Smith said he un­der­stood the fear among the pub­lic be­cause of po­lice im­posters. Re­fer­ring to a sce­nario where dri­vers may be con­front­ed by strangers pur­port­ing to be po­lice, Smith said cit­i­zens were with­in their right to seek im­me­di­ate help if they felt they were in dan­ger.

“If you are out there at night and don’t see the (au­tho­rised) grey and blue uni­forms, then by all means, dri­ve to the near­est po­lice sta­tion. We will be sen­si­tis­ing our of­fi­cers as it re­lates to this. Every sin­gle mem­ber of the po­lice ser­vice is very con­cerned about this; we are con­cerned be­cause this is some­thing that un­der­mines our uni­form, and I dare­say des­e­crates our uni­form.”

Po­lice in­dis­ci­pline

Dur­ing a po­lice town hall meet­ing in Char­lieville last No­vem­ber, res­i­dents raised con­cerns over the preva­lence of crim­i­nals pos­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers to com­mit crimes but al­so re­marked that le­git­i­mate po­lice of­fi­cers them­selves may refuse to show their badges or of­fi­cial TTPS ID cards.

“Some of them are re­al of­fi­cers and are not show­ing their badge or ID but giv­ing you an at­ti­tude to go with it,” one woman re­marked.

In re­sponse, then Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Supt Miguel Mon­trichard said in such sit­u­a­tions it would be best to com­ply with the per­son con­fronting them. How­ev­er, one IATF of­fi­cer said this ex­pos­es the pub­lic to un­nec­es­sary risk and in­stead urged cit­i­zens to con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion for ad­vice on whether the peo­ple con­fronting them were le­git­i­mate po­lice of­fi­cers.

“It’s a tick­lish thing. They can con­tact the near­est (po­lice) sta­tion and in­form them as to what is hap­pen­ing and say they are con­cerned over the un­cer­tain­ty of it be­ing le­git­i­mate po­lice.

“Oth­er than that, there’s very lit­tle that can be done be­cause any­thing else would mean mak­ing phys­i­cal con­tact with the in­di­vid­u­als to check their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and so on.”

The of­fi­cer ad­mit­ted that po­lice in op­er­a­tional units may be hes­i­tant or un­will­ing to show their of­fi­cial TTPS iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards or badges, de­spite it be­ing prop­er pro­ce­dure.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, re­tired po­lice Cpl Oluye­mi Mashama said of­fi­cers should present their of­fi­cial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion once re­quest­ed from the pub­lic and en­cour­aged se­nior of­fi­cers to hold their sub­or­di­nates ac­count­able to cer­tain stan­dards.

Mashama, who worked as an in­struc­tor at the po­lice acad­e­my for 13 years, said the pub­lic’s trust was nec­es­sary for the suc­cess of any crit­i­cal crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive and warned that the fail­ure of of­fi­cers to obey their de­part­men­tal or­ders of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion could erode that sup­port.

“Po­lice of­fi­cers must be mind­ful of their du­ties to pro­tect and serve a na­tion. If you’re not do­ing it, your se­niors should do their job and hold you ac­count­able for your ac­tions.

“I think the lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty or peo­ple be­ing held ac­count­able is what could be lead­ing to­wards crim­i­nals be­ing able to get away with a lot more.”

In cas­es where peo­ple may still be doubt­ful over whether the peo­ple en­gag­ing them are in fact le­git­i­mate po­lice of­fi­cers, Mashama urged the pub­lic to stream their in­ter­ac­tions live on so­cial me­dia.

“Make sure the of­fi­cer can see your hands and say, ‘Of­fi­cers, I have start­ed a live video, and I just want you to iden­ti­fy your­selves as au­tho­rised po­lice of­fi­cers or re­al po­lice of­fi­cers.’

“Re­al po­lice of­fi­cers should not have any is­sue with this be­cause they are do­ing their job the right way, and you need to un­der­stand cit­i­zens just want to make sure they are safe.”

Mashama said that giv­en his ex­pe­ri­ence in law en­force­ment, the man­ner­isms and be­hav­iour of the ban­dits in­volved in the kid­nap­ping of Su­vesh Ram­nar­ine were un­like those of po­lice, which eas­i­ly dis­tin­guished them from le­git­i­mate of­fi­cers.

He said the rel­a­tive­ly easy-go­ing ap­proach of the at­tack­ers and the po­si­tion­ing of their ve­hi­cles around the bar where Ram­nar­ine was ab­duct­ed aroused his sus­pi­cions.

“They were too ca­su­al; the po­si­tion­ing of their ve­hi­cles for go­ing in­to some­thing that should have been a se­ri­ous raid. The tac­ti­cal ma­noeu­vres were to­tal­ly off, but I could tell from that video that some­thing wasn’t right. The amount of them that en­tered the com­pound at the same time, they were off.”

The clam­p­down on the use of op­er­a­tional uni­forms with­in the TTPS is on­ly one step to­wards a re­duc­tion in the num­ber of in­ci­dents in­volv­ing po­lice im­per­son­ators, he said.

But man­ag­ing the is­sue re­quires more than just a rein­tro­duc­tion of in­ter­nal reg­u­la­tions, as cre­ative crim­i­nals can find sev­er­al ways around such mech­a­nisms. Key to the re­duc­tion in the num­ber of fake po­lice is the co­op­er­a­tion of street-lev­el of­fi­cers to obey their own rules to re­gain the trust of the pub­lic.

What the law says about po­lice uni­forms

Un­der the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Bill, any­one found guilty of wear­ing a po­lice uni­form or im­per­son­at­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer is li­able to be fined $150,000 or face five years’ im­pris­on­ment.

Clause Four of the same bill amends the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, which states that any of­fi­cer who “pawns, sells, trans­fers, loans, or makes avail­able his arms ac­cou­trements, cloth­ing, or any pub­lic prop­er­ty” is li­able to a fine of $750,000 or im­pris­on­ment for 20 years.

Un­der Sec­tion 62 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, Chap­ter 15:01, any­one—oth­er than a po­lice of­fi­cer—who (a) puts on or as­sumes, ei­ther in whole or in part, the uni­form, name, des­ig­na­tion, or de­scrip­tion of a po­lice of­fi­cer, or a uni­form, name, or des­ig­na­tion, re­sem­bling and in­tend­ed to re­sem­ble the uni­form, name, or des­ig­na­tion of a po­lice of­fi­cer; or (b) in any way pre­tends to be a po­lice of­fi­cer for any pur­pose which he would not by the law be en­ti­tled to do of his own au­thor­i­ty.

Crimes com­mit­ted by fake cops in 2024

• On Oc­to­ber 14, Moru­ga busi­ness­man Ter­rence Thomas was re­port­ed­ly robbed and ab­duct­ed by ban­dits who iden­ti­fied them­selves as po­lice of­fi­cers.

• Busi­ness­man Su­vesh Ram­nar­ine was kid­napped by armed men wear­ing tac­ti­cal gear and dri­ving a black Hyundai Tuc­son with blue strobe lights from a bar in Cunu­pia on Oc­to­ber 12, 2024. His where­abouts as of Thurs­day evening re­main un­known.

• Used-car deal­er Sachel Kunge­be­har­ry was kid­napped on Sep­tem­ber 25, when the car he was dri­ving was in­ter­cept­ed by a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle. Men wear­ing po­lice uni­forms took Kunge­be­har­ry away. His de­com­pos­ing body was found in a shal­low grave off Pokhor Road, Long­denville. Two po­lice of­fi­cers were charged in con­nec­tion with this. Oth­er peo­ple ar­rest­ed were lat­er re­leased.

• On Au­gust 5, Emer­son Bouch­er, 21 and Michael De Gazon were gunned down in Sama­roo Vil­lage, Ari­ma, by men dri­ving a Suzu­ki Grand Vi­tara, which was equipped with flash­ing blue lights.

• On Ju­ly 16, a 23-year-old Chi­nese na­tion­al was out­side his Bam­boo Creek, Cunu­pia, home when he was con­front­ed by men wear­ing po­lice tac­ti­cal uni­forms who stole $17,000 from him.

• On April 21, a Pe­nal bar own­er was robbed of cash and jew­ellery by four men dressed as po­lice of­fi­cers. The men then re­port­ed­ly es­caped in a car equipped with blue flash­ing lights and a siren.

• On March 11, Bud­dy George, 59, his sons, Je­re­mi­ah George, Mar­cus Bud­dy, and gar­den­er Dion Key­on Men­doza, were ex­e­cut­ed in a Ma­yaro for­est by men wear­ing po­lice tac­ti­cal gear and who iden­ti­fied them­selves as po­lice of­fi­cers.

• On Jan­u­ary 16, Is­rael McLaren, 19, Shaq­keem Den­nis, 27, and Jo­mol Williams were lim­ing in Par­adise Heights, Mor­vant, when gun­men wear­ing tac­ti­cal gear got out of a dark grey pick­up truck. The killers iden­ti­fied them­selves as po­lice of­fi­cers be­fore shoot­ing the trio, killing them.