Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er, Gary Grif­fith says the ar­rest of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and the for­mer di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) prove that de­spite po­si­tion or sta­tus, no one is above the law.

The ar­rests are part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles. Grif­fith said yes­ter­day, all mat­ters need to be probed re­gard­less of who is said to be in­volved.

“This is in­deed an un­for­tu­nate de­vel­op­ment but what it can show is that no one is above the law and if it is there is an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, re­gard­less of who the in­di­vid­ual is, they can and should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.”

Grif­fith called for po­lice of­fi­cers not to be de­railed from their du­ties and fur­ther com­mend­ed those in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“This here is a per­fect ex­am­ple of what is re­quired for in­ves­ti­ga­tions hav­ing bona fide po­lice of­fi­cers to con­duct the in­ves­ti­ga­tions to as­cer­tain whether some­one is to be ar­rest­ed, charged or not,  not hir­ing re­tired judges who have no knowl­edge of law en­force­ment train­ing or re­tirees and call them in­ves­ti­ga­tors. Do an au­dit, pay peo­ple mil­lions of dol­lars and then they come up with lies to dis­cred­it per­sons based on an agen­da.”

Re­tired Ap­peal Court Judge Stan­ley John had been pre­vi­ous­ly tasked with con­duct­ing a probe and com­pil­ing a re­port in­to the is­suance of firearm users’ li­cens­es (FUL) by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) dur­ing Grif­fith’s tenure as po­lice com­mis­sion­er. John had de­scribed the process as a “thriv­ing well-oiled white-col­lar crim­i­nal en­ter­prise.” Grif­fith sub­se­quent­ly sought le­gal re­dress fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of the re­port.

Mean­while, for­mer act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said he did not want to com­ment on the mat­ter, while calls to re­tired act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams’ phone went unan­swered.