JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says death threats are par for the course for lead­ers and should be dealt with with­out pub­lic an­nounce­ments.

Grif­fith was com­ment­ing on the threats against Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and his daugh­ters. The threat was re­ceived by a po­lice con­sta­ble via the 999 hot­line on Ju­ly 11.

The caller re­port­ed­ly claimed that there were too many “boss­es” in cus­tody and they need­ed to be freed oth­er­wise Gue­var­ro would be tar­get­ed and his daugh­ters if he could not be reached.

In re­sponse, Gue­var­ro said the threats are cow­ard­ly.

There are al­so me­dia re­ports of a plot to mur­der Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and a fur­ther plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said that, in his ca­pac­i­ty as mil­i­tary at­taché to for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and for­mer pres­i­dent Arthur Robin­son, threats were made to both men, and he had to put ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures on both.

He said when he was CoP, there were at least 43 threats against him and his fam­i­ly.

“What you’re see­ing now of death threats to politi­cians, to the fam­i­ly of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and so forth, has been go­ing on for decades. What I think is the dif­fer­ence now is that, un­like in the past, where these sit­u­a­tions would ac­tu­al­ly be kept se­cret, and you will do fur­ther in­tel­li­gence to ver­i­fy whether the threats will ac­tu­al­ly take place and if so, you neu­tralise the pos­si­bil­i­ty of that threat. What is hap­pen­ing now is that it has been made known to the pub­lic.”

He added that every time there is a death threat that is known to the pub­lic, it is giv­en the per­cep­tion that threats against pub­lic of­fi­cials are new to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“This has been go­ing on for decades. I think what should be re­quired is for the rel­e­vant law en­force­ment agen­cies to as­cer­tain whether the threats are valid and, if so, sim­ply neu­tralise the threat rather than hav­ing every sin­gle time there’s a threat, make it known to the pub­lic.”

Al­so com­ment­ing on the threat was re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah who said the re­cent threats against pub­lic of­fi­cials should be treat­ed as a mat­ter of se­ri­ous con­cern.

“Whether these threats are ul­ti­mate­ly proven to be cred­i­ble or not, that’s not for us to do or in our stand­ing so to do, but they rep­re­sent a wor­ry­ing trend, and you can see it where in­tim­i­da­tion is in­creas­ing­ly be­ing used now to in­flu­ence pub­lic de­ci­sion-mak­ing. If this is left unchecked, this has the po­ten­tial to un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions and em­bold­en, strength­en, and in­crease crim­i­nal el­e­ments.”

He added that there is now a need to broad­en the un­der­stand­ing of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to in­clude the pro­tec­tion of those en­trust­ed with gov­ern­ing the coun­try.

“That does not mean pub­lic of­fi­cials should be­come in­ac­ces­si­ble. As a mat­ter of fact, the ob­jec­tive is not to be in iso­la­tion, but, you know, smarter pro­tec­tion dri­ven by in­tel­li­gence-led threat as­sess­ments,” he said.

He added that of­fi­cials must now en­sure that train­ing, readi­ness, pre­pared­ness, and re­sources are all in­tact and up­grad­ed, fol­low­ing in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices.

Threats against Gary Grif­fith

* In No­vem­ber 2018, a man called the po­lice and threat­ened the lives of both Grif­fith and his wife Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith. He said then that he was un­fazed by the threats and called on those “clog­ging up the line” to act and not talk.

* In Ju­ly 2019, Grif­fith re­vealed that he had re­ceived al­most 30 death threats dur­ing his first year as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and said he ex­pect­ed more be­cause of the mea­sures be­ing tak­en against crim­i­nal gangs. He said the death threats in his first year as com­mis­sion­er was an in­di­ca­tion that he was “step­ping on some toes.”

* In June 2021, Grif­fith said that he, his wife and their three chil­dren re­ceived 28 death threats dur­ing his three-year tenure as the top cop. He de­scribed the threats as stem­ming from his fight against crim­i­nal el­e­ments and said in­tel­li­gence agen­cies re­gard­ed the num­ber of threats as un­prece­dent­ed for a pub­lic of­fi­cial.

*Last year, dur­ing a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view, Grif­fith claimed he re­ceived 43 death threats while serv­ing as po­lice com­mis­sion­er. He re­port­ed­ly said he chose not to pub­lish them and in­stead fo­cused on se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.