Just as a 12-year-old ac­cused was plead­ing guilty to the charge of mis­use of a tele­phone in mak­ing a death threat against Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith on Sun­day, po­lice of­fi­cers nabbed a 35-year-old man in con­nec­tion with a sec­ond death threat which was made yes­ter­day.

In the sec­ond case, the sus­pect threat­ened to be­head Grif­fith and al­so threat­ened kill his wife, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, po­lice of­fi­cers from an elite unit con­duct­ed a search at the sus­pect’s home in Gas­par­il­lo at about 4 pm. A me­dia re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed the phone used to is­sue the threat was seized dur­ing the search of the house.

The sus­pect was still in po­lice cus­tody at the Port-of-Spain Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment last night.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 1.30 am yes­ter­day an anony­mous caller phoned the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Com­mand Cen­tre. The male caller, whose num­ber was reg­is­tered in the cen­tre’s sys­tem, re­port­ed­ly said: “I want to sum­mon Gary Grif­fith for defama­tion of char­ac­ter against me to­mor­row in court, or else I will call him and chop off he (ex­ple­tive) moth­er (ex­ple­tive) head. How you like that? And kill he wife Nicole Dy­er... huh moth­er (ex­ple­tive).”

But hav­ing re­ceived a sec­ond death threat against his life in four days, with his wife in­clud­ed yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said his wife was the one “these punks” should be afraid of.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day, Dy­er-Grif­fith al­so said she was “not afraid, nor con­cerned.”

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia, Dy­er-Grif­fith de­scribed the peo­ple be­hind the threats as “cow­ards.

“This is par for the course. They are just cow­ards. I don’t waste time talk­ing,” she said.

Grif­fith said he ex­pects “these des­per­ate threats on a dai­ly ba­sis,” and added that he would con­tin­ue along with the work he has al­ready start­ed in clean­ing up the crim­i­nal el­e­ments in T&T.

“Cer­tain crim­i­nal el­e­ments felt they were in full con­trol and this na­tion be­longed sole­ly to them to do as they pleased. Well, there is a new kid on the block who will not al­low these thugs to bul­ly law-abid­ing cit­i­zens as eas­i­ly as they did be­fore. These threats are ex­pect­ed,” Grif­fith said.

“Bul­lies do not like be­ing bul­lied. I would ask them, yet again, to stop clog­ging up our E999 and Com­mand Cen­tre with these threats. If they want to do some­thing, don’t talk, just do. It may be their last act.”

Asked how his wife was han­dling the threat made against her, Grif­fith replied: “These punks should be more fear­ful of Nicole than me. They may have a bet­ter chance against me.”

He added that he ex­pect­ed the crim­i­nal el­e­ments to re­spond to his ac­tions.

“This hap­pens world­wide when crim­i­nal el­e­ments are pegged back. Seiz­ing their il­le­gal drugs and weapons, plans to lock down bor­ders, ar­rest­ing hun­dreds for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, I do not ex­pect them or those who de­fend them to like or sup­port me.”

With threats in­creas­ing and now against his fam­i­ly as well, Grif­fith said he has no fear as “hav­ing fear can cause a leader to make in­cor­rect de­ci­sions in a con­flict.

“My train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence in com­bat did not have a mod­ule to teach you to be fear­ful. I do not know what that feels like.”

He al­so promised his “wan­na-be-killers” a “wel­come gift” and de­scribed them as “wimps.”

“Stop be­ing a wimp (weak­ling or a cow­ard) and grand charge by send­ing mes­sages. If they want me, they know where to find me. I would have a wel­come gift for them on im­me­di­ate en­try,” Grif­fith said.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.