RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Nkosi Br­ere­ton’s grad­u­a­tion ball be­came an ex­tra­or­di­nary night to re­mem­ber as two po­lice of­fi­cers es­cort­ed him to the event with sirens blar­ing and blue lights flash­ing. 

Rac­ing through red lights, with the po­lice car lead­ing the way through traf­fic, Nkosi couldn’t help but won­der how his friends would re­act up­on his ar­rival. 

Lit­tle did he know that it would be a celebri­ty en­trance, with his friends ap­plaud­ing and con­grat­u­lat­ing him.

Re­call­ing the re­mark­able oc­ca­sion, Nkosi said his grad­u­a­tion day last Thurs­day start­ed with dif­fi­cul­ties as his fa­ther, Bernard Br­ere­ton, an es­tate con­sta­ble with MTS, worked late. 

“Nkosi was very ex­cit­ed. Every minute he kept call­ing me, say­ing, ‘Dad­dy, have you fin­ished work yet?’” Bernard re­called. It was near­ly 8 pm when Bernard fi­nal­ly ar­rived home.

“We rushed to get ready and jumped in­to the car, but as soon as we turned the cor­ner, the car cut off. The bat­tery was dead,” Bernard ex­plained. 

No mat­ter how hard they tried to restart the car, it re­fused to start. 

Leav­ing his wife, Michelle, and Nkosi in the car, Bernard said he walked to the near­by gas sta­tion in Union Hall to seek help.

Just then, a po­lice car pulled up, ini­tial­ly caus­ing Michelle to feel un­easy, an­tic­i­pat­ing po­ten­tial rep­ri­mand be­cause of where the car was parked.

Much to her re­lief two smil­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, PC Su­jeet Ram­cha­ran and PC Phoolchan, stepped out of the ve­hi­cle. Michelle said PC Ram­cha­ran had a kind and help­ful de­meanour. 

“He re­as­sured me that every­thing would be al­right,” she re­called. The of­fi­cers went to the near­by gas sta­tion, re­turned with Bernard, got the car start­ed, and pro­vid­ed a po­lice es­cort for the fam­i­ly to Paria Suites, where Nkosi’s grad­u­a­tion was tak­ing place.

In a video, the fam­i­ly post­ed their de­light.

“Woo, red light noth­ing!” Bernard was heard say­ing as they zoomed through the traf­fic.

Michelle laughed hearti­ly as she de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence to Guardian Me­dia.

 “We were dri­ving through traf­fic, pass­ing red lights, and my boy was sit­ting in the back like a lit­tle king. It was quite an ex­pe­ri­ence.” 

Bernard ex­pressed his ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the of­fi­cers say­ing: “We need more po­lice of­fi­cers like that. They did a fan­tas­tic job, and we were so grate­ful for their as­sis­tance.”

Dur­ing the dri­ve, Nkosi pon­dered what his friends would say up­on his ar­rival. 

 “It was def­i­nite­ly a cool ex­pe­ri­ence. They made my night, and they al­so por­trayed the TTPS in a pos­i­tive light,” he said.

 Nkosi said his friends were ec­sta­t­ic to wit­ness his ar­rival with a po­lice es­cort with one friend ex­claim­ing, “Is that re­al­ly Nkosi pulling up with a po­lice es­cort?”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, PC Ram­cha­ran ex­pressed his joy in help­ing Nkosi reach his grad­u­a­tion, recog­nis­ing it as one of the most im­por­tant nights of the young stu­dent’s life. 

“This is what the TTPS is about. I en­sured their safe ar­rival, and they were very hap­py and ex­cit­ed,” he said.

PC Ram­cha­ran al­so proud­ly ac­knowl­edged the sup­port of his fel­low of­fi­cers and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher who per­son­al­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed him. 

He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of demon­strat­ing cour­tesy and re­spect to cit­i­zens at all times, as the po­lice have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect and serve.

When con­tact­ed, CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher com­mend­ed the two of­fi­cers for their as­sis­tance, not­ing that they had made the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and their coun­try proud.