An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs died last week while par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2025 World Triathlon Cham­pi­onship Fi­nals in Aus­tralia.

The 70-year-old Cana­di­an, who had the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the first for­eign­er to serve as T&T’s CoP, re­port­ed­ly suf­fered a “med­ical emer­gency” dur­ing the event and did not re­cov­er. Ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial re­sults, Gibbs, reg­is­tered in the 70–74 age group, did not fin­ish the race.

Held from Oc­to­ber 15–19 in Wol­lon­gong, New South Wales, the cham­pi­onship fea­tured sev­er­al days of com­pe­ti­tion across swim­ming, cy­cling, and run­ning.

Se­nior of­fi­cers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) were in­formed of Gibbs’s pass­ing via email from for­mer deputy com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki on Sun­day.

Ewats­ki’s mes­sage read: “It is with great sad­ness that I learned yes­ter­day that Dwayne Gibbs, our friend and col­league, passed away in Aus­tralia af­ter suf­fer­ing a med­ical emer­gency dur­ing a triathlon event ten days ago.”

Ewats­ki, who served along­side Gibbs in T&T, de­scribed his re­ac­tion as one of shock, not­ing Gibbs’s well-known pas­sion for fit­ness and a healthy lifestyle.

Gibbs, a for­mer Al­ber­ta po­lice of­fi­cer, served as T&T’s CoP from 2010 to 2012. He re­signed two years in­to his three-year tenure amid re­sis­tance from some mem­bers of the lo­cal law en­force­ment com­mu­ni­ty. His tenure was marked by sev­er­al chal­lenges, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing gov­ern­ment con­tracts af­fect­ing gang-re­lat­ed ex­tor­tion.

For­mer act­ing CoP Stephen Williams, who served as the most se­nior deputy com­mis­sion­er un­der Gibbs, ex­pressed his con­do­lences, say­ing, “Dr Dwayne Gibbs’ pass­ing is a shock to me and, I am sure, to all of­fi­cers in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice who worked un­der his lead­er­ship. He was known as a very fit man. As Se­nior Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice dur­ing his tenure, I ex­tend con­do­lences to his wife, fam­i­ly, and rel­a­tives. He made a con­tri­bu­tion to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go in polic­ing for two years.”

For­mer act­ing CoP Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob al­so paid trib­ute, re­mem­ber­ing Gibbs as some­one com­mit­ted to im­prov­ing the TTPS. Ja­cob, who served as as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent of the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) Branch at the time, said, “CA­PA was new, seek­ing to stream­line prop­er da­ta col­lec­tion, im­ple­ment com­put­erised sys­tems, and es­tab­lish new crime re­port­ing meth­ods in line with sci­en­tif­ic polic­ing. Mr Gibbs gave me the nec­es­sary sup­port in that ef­fort.”

Ja­cob added that Gibbs was com­mit­ted to mod­ernising the TTPS and pro­mot­ing the men­tal and phys­i­cal health of of­fi­cers.

“He en­cour­aged of­fi­cers to make healthy lifestyle changes and played a cru­cial role in mov­ing the TTPS from tra­di­tion­al to in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing. He will al­ways be re­mem­bered for that.”