Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is hit­ting back at his crit­i­cis, say­ing he makes de­ci­sions as this coun­try’s top cop based on what is right and not what is pop­u­lar.

In a Face­book post short­ly af­ter 3 pm Sat­ur­day, Grif­fith said he has made sev­er­al de­ci­sions re­cent­ly that have sparked na­tion­wide de­bates.

Among those de­ci­sions, Grif­fith said, was the re­lease of 69 peo­ple from the Trans­formed Life Min­istries Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in Arou­ca on Oc­to­ber 9.

“The au­dac­i­ty of me, be­ing so bold, to re­lease 69 per­sons who were re­port­ed as be­ing im­pris­oned against their will, tor­tured, beat­en, left naked, kid­napped, as­sault­ed and had funds tak­en away from them. How dare I as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, be so out of place to ex­pose this and re­lease these per­sons from cap­tiv­i­ty?” he wrote on his Face­book ac­count.

Grif­fith did not mince words as he lashed out at de­trac­tors to the ac­qui­si­tion of ar­moured ve­hi­cles for po­lice to use in volatile sit­u­a­tions. He said this stan­dard was up­held in every oth­er part of the world.

“How dare I ac­quire an ar­moured ve­hi­cle to as­sist the State to en­sure that we are pre­pared to act if there is ever a re­peat of 1990, or to ex­tract a hostage if held cap­tive, or to get per­son­nel to a site to defuse a bomb, by want­i­ng to have them se­cured in a ve­hi­cle that could save their lives?” he wrote.

He al­so de­fend­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of a so­cial me­dia mon­i­tor­ing cen­tre, say­ing in ad­di­tion to be­ing used to thwart or solve a mur­der, the unit will as­sist in re­duc­ing child pornog­ra­phy, hu­man traf­fick­ing, child pros­ti­tu­tion, re­cruit­ment of ter­ror­ist and re­cruit­ing gangs.

Grif­fith al­so ad­dressed his or­der for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to why talk show host Ian Al­leyne was al­lowed to ac­com­pa­ny po­lice of­fi­cers who were try­ing to res­cue his sis­ter, Danah Al­leyne, from her boyfriend, Keon Paryag, on Fri­day evening in Ch­agua­nas.

Paryag, a li­cenced firearm hold­er, was said to be shoot­ing in­side Danah’s apart­ment when po­lice were called in. The stand-off be­tween Paryag and po­lice end­ed in Paryag’s death. But videos post­ed on so­cial me­dia showed Ian stand­ing along­side of­fi­cers as Sen Supt Wayne Mys­tar tried to ne­go­ti­ate with Paryag and lat­er lead­ing his sis­ter out of her apart­ment when Paryag was shot.

Mys­tar is mar­ried to one of Ian’s sis­ters.

With­in hours of the in­ci­dent, Grif­fith is­sued his call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“The same crit­ics who are con­cerned about me be­ing so bold to deal with a breach of op­er­a­tional law en­force­ment pol­i­cy by al­low­ing a civil­ian in­to a hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment would be the first to be ex­press­ing con­cerns, had that same cit­i­zen been killed in the cross­fire,” Grif­fith said.

“Whilst the of­fi­cers can be com­mend­ed for their ac­tions in ex­tract­ing the hostage un­harmed, I ask which coun­try, po­lice de­part­ment or ser­vice in the world, would find it ap­pro­pri­ate for a rel­a­tive of some­one be­ing held hostage to be al­lowed to draw a firearm and ac­com­pa­ny po­lice of­fi­cers in­to a hostage cri­sis?”