Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day called on the pub­lic not to knock his suc­ces­sor, cur­rent Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, for fail­ing to meet any of her set tar­gets for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice last year.

Rather, he placed the blame for the col­lapse of the TTPS’ an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives on the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), who he not­ed ap­point­ed Hare­wood-Christo­pher de­spite her poor per­for­mance when as­sessed for the job.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, in which he said it was time to stop bash­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher for her ad­mit­tance that she had failed to meet any of her 11 an­ti-crime tar­gets last year, Grif­fith said, “For the past year, the pub­lic has be­come more crit­i­cal of Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher, and while we un­der­stand the pub­lic’s frus­tra­tion due to the es­ca­lat­ing crime rate, which saw pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence fall from 59 per cent when she took over to 8 per cent where it is now, and for the record of the first and sec­ond most mur­der­ous years in the his­to­ry of our coun­try; the truth is she is not at fault be­cause she didn’t ap­point her­self. The blame must rest square­ly on the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion who ap­point­ed her.”

He added, “Her lack of any plans, poli­cies, and ini­tia­tives and her in­abil­i­ty to speak clear­ly when ques­tioned should not be sur­pris­ing, giv­en that when as­sessed by ex­perts, she fin­ished 12th, some 30 per­cent­age points be­hind the per­son with the top marks. To be more spe­cif­ic, in the me­dia as­pect of the as­sess­ment, she got 4.67 out of 15, which was the sec­ond low­est of all the can­di­dates as­sessed. In Fit for Role, an­oth­er as­sess­ment cat­e­go­ry, she tied for last with just 3 points, which was again out of 15.”

Grif­fith re­mind­ed that the cur­rent spi­ralling trend was sparked by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s in­ter­fer­ence in the CoP se­lec­tion process, which, he said, led to the col­lapse of the pre­vi­ous PolSC un­der Bliss Seep­er­sad.

How­ev­er, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figuera said de­spite the CoP’s ad­mis­sion to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Wednes­day, she should not be re­moved.

Figuera not­ed that any dras­tic move could fur­ther add to con­cerns of in­ter­fer­ence and politi­cis­ing of the TTPS.

“If we fire the present com­mis­sion­er, that sends a most un­wel­come sign to the pol­i­tics of crime in this coun­try. That is, in fact, go­ing to be blood on the wa­ter, you can­not feed red meat to peo­ple rant­i­ng and rav­ing about crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty and have no so­lu­tions about crime, they are just talk­ing ... so if you want to politi­cise the TTPS at this time then it is time for me to get out of here.”

Ac­cord­ing to Figuera, af­ter blun­ders in re­duc­ing blood­shed, Hare­wood-Christo­pher now has to be cau­tious with her words.

“What is hap­pen­ing now is that the com­mis­sion­er is now re­act­ing to the blows she has re­ceived and she is in a state of shell shock, very weary that how she an­swers a ques­tion posed to her can re­sult in an­oth­er bar­rage against her com­pe­tence.”

Figuera al­so sug­gest­ed it ap­peared as though the po­lice ser­vice was be­ing made a scape­goat for the fail­ure by of­fice hold­ers to take a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to han­dling the crime sit­u­a­tion.

“The TTPS is now the fall guy of the en­tire pol­i­tics of crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause the politi­cians are not will­ing to ac­cept their fail­ures in man­ag­ing the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go through the years, so the com­mis­sion­er is tak­ing blows for re­al­i­ties in the crime land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go that the TTPS has no pow­er over.”

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, cur­rent Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man, re­tired judge Ju­dith Jones, said she could not com­ment on the mat­ters stem­ming out of the JSC.

Mean­while, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty di­rec­tor David West said ef­forts have been made to en­gage with the CoP on the is­sue of en­sur­ing po­lice of­fi­cers wear body cam­eras, which al­so came up dur­ing the JSC.

“We have is­sued many pieces of ad­vice to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice that of­fi­cers should be wear­ing body cam­eras be­cause body cam­eras act as a pro­tec­tion for the po­lice ser­vice.”

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion head Gideon Dixon said while train­ing in the use of body cam­eras is on­go­ing, a more tar­get­ed ap­proach may be need­ed to break cer­tain bar­ri­ers and push­back from of­fi­cers.

“The fact that of­fi­cers are not yet em­brac­ing it is a cause for us to look to get be­yond that thresh­old. Not too far from now, I could see of­fi­cers whole­heart­ed­ly em­brac­ing it, es­pe­cial­ly in the op­er­a­tional mode and that in it­self will add val­ue to what we are do­ing.

“It will al­so breed that sense of pub­lic con­fi­dence that per­sons of­ten speak to when en­gag­ing the po­lice of­fi­cers. There should be a com­po­nent in the train­ing that speaks to the val­ue of util­is­ing the gad­get,” he said.