A for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice and ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) say they were nev­er bom­bard­ed with re­quests for firearm users’ li­cences (FULs) from politi­cians dur­ing their time in the ser­vice. The for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber said if that was Gary Grif­fith’s ex­pe­ri­ence, then he may have very well cre­at­ed that at­mos­phere for him­self.

For­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams said he re­ceived nu­mer­ous re­quests, even from Grif­fith him­self when he was na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter. On Wednes­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds was ac­cused by Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal of telling un­truths to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment in 2022 when he was asked if he rec­om­mend­ed any­one to re­ceive a FUL.

While Min­is­ter Hinds said he did not, at least to his rec­ol­lec­tion, Mooni­lal pro­vid­ed Guardian Me­dia with screen­shots of al­leged What­sApp con­ver­sa­tions be­tween Hinds and then com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith, which pur­port­ed oth­er­wise. Grif­fith did not con­firm nor de­ny the mes­sages but added, “I was bom­bard­ed con­stant­ly by very se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to get firearms for their friends in high places.”

Guardian Me­dia thought it pru­dent to ask oth­er lead­ers in the TTPS if they had a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence.

For­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er Williams, who served dur­ing two sep­a­rate gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­tra­tions from 2012 to 2018, said, “I wouldn’t use the term bom­bard­ed, but over a span of six years, I would have re­ceived nu­mer­ous re­quests.”

Williams did not want to say if those re­quests were for friends and fam­i­ly or MPs, but he did re­veal, “I would have re­ceived re­quests from var­i­ous per­sons, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing min­is­ters, and in­clud­ing the very said Gary Grif­fith for the very said is­sue of se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.”

On Wednes­day, Grif­fith made it clear that they did not treat any re­quests from politi­cians as un­eth­i­cal or il­le­gal. Williams said he did not take note of which ad­min­is­tra­tion’s mem­bers sent him more re­quests than the oth­er, but he said he nev­er dealt with them as if it were an in­struc­tion.

“The fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple is that when you sit as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice and you re­ceive a re­quest, you need to know it’s a re­quest and not an in­struc­tion. And there­fore, you need to ex­er­cise the dis­cre­tion that you have un­der the law whether you pro­ceed to ap­prove a firearm li­cence or not, and you are guid­ed by some key prin­ci­ples. So, a re­quest from a politi­cian or even a min­is­ter for me is just a re­quest,” he ex­plained.

Williams said if he gave the per­son who made the re­quest an un­der­tak­ing that he would deal with the mat­ter, it did not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean he was go­ing to ap­prove the re­quest. Mean­while, a for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the TTPS who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said he was not sur­prised Grif­fith was “bom­bard­ed” with re­quests from politi­cians as he cre­at­ed a sys­tem where peo­ple felt em­pow­ered to do so.

“Mr Grif­fith had opened up the sys­tem for that so he would get nu­mer­ous re­quests. He cre­at­ed that at­mos­phere. So, Mr Grif­fith’s po­si­tion is unique,” he ex­plained.

The for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber added, “It was good of Mr Grif­fith try­ing in some way to open up the sys­tem and not keep it as tight as it was be­fore. But open­ing it up with­out prop­er mon­i­tor­ing cre­at­ed some prob­lems, and po­lice of­fi­cers went be­fore the courts. Too many loop­holes were opened up for all kinds of things to place.”

Asked if they were al­so “bom­bard­ed” with re­quests while serv­ing the TTPS, the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber said he served dur­ing the au­dit in­to the TTPS’ firearms de­part­ment and the re­tired Ap­peal Court judge Jus­tice Stan­ley John’s re­port on the is­suance of FULs un­der the TTPS.

“At that stage, peo­ple knew what was go­ing on, so hard­ly any­one came to me at that stage be­cause at that time the firearms is­sue was hot. So, no­body want­ed to make re­quests,” he ex­plained.

But the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber said some re­quests did come in from per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters. “When emer­gen­cies hap­pened, peo­ple would make re­quests, but there was no bom­bard­ment of re­quests com­ing from the UNC when it was in pow­er or the PNM when they were in pow­er.

“But Mr Grif­fith and they cre­at­ed the at­mos­phere for that when they es­ca­lat­ed the whole idea of firearms. So, I won’t be sur­prised if a lot of peo­ple send him re­quests,” he said.

He added that re­quests were even made by se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers on be­half of busi­ness own­ers who felt as if they were un­der threat.