Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

On Sep­tem­ber 12, eight new As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (ACPs) and six new Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dents re­ceived their let­ters of ap­point­ment to units and di­vi­sions. The shuf­fle in lead­er­ship po­si­tions of the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive comes as the mur­der count con­tin­ues to es­ca­late with 454 mur­ders record­ed as of Sat­ur­day com­pared to 426 for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

Da­ta com­piled from the TTPS Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch show that the Port-of-Spain, East­ern and To­ba­go Di­vi­sions have the high­est num­ber of mur­ders due to gang vi­o­lence. But as the pub­lic and ju­nior of­fi­cers look to their new di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders for fresh strate­gies against crim­i­nals, the new­ly ap­point­ed of­fi­cers face long-stand­ing is­sues and emerg­ing chal­lenges in the ar­eas un­der their su­per­vi­sion.

West­ern and Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sions

Cur­rent ACP North-West Ryan Khan served as head of the East­ern Di­vi­sion for four years be­fore be­ing ap­point­ed ACP South-Cen­tral in Au­gust. In his cur­rent port­fo­lio, he is re­spon­si­ble for the West­ern and Port-of-Spain di­vi­sions where there have been gang wars be­tween Sixx and Sev­en fac­tions since mid-2023.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Sep­tem­ber 16, there have been 72 mur­ders in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion com­pared to 31 mur­ders for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

The use of high-pow­ered au­to­mat­ic weapons dur­ing these at­tacks has led to sev­er­al mul­ti­ple mur­ders in the West­ern and Port-of-Spain di­vi­sions for the year so far. One of the most wide­ly re­port­ed oc­curred in March at Harpe Place where five peo­ple, Rudolph Don­nie James, Randy Graves, po­lice band mem­ber Sgt Lar­ry Phillip, Pe­te No­ray, and De­von Jack, were killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing.

In May, in Pow­der Mag­a­zine, Co­corite, four peo­ple—22-year-old Shaquille Ot­t­ley, Sadi­ki Ot­t­ley, 31, Jonathan Os­mond, 36, and An­to­nio Jack, 57, were killed when gun­men opened fire on them out­side Phase 1.

The gang war was al­so waged on the com­pounds of pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties. The first in­ci­dent was at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in June when gun­men who staged an at­tack in Gon­za­les killed 21-year-old Jadon Reyes, wound­ing three oth­ers. Sur­vivors Pe­ter Ab­dul Williams, Kevin King, and Jonathan Ar­joon were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal but were fol­lowed by the gun­men who killed them there be­fore es­cap­ing.

Ear­li­er this month, hos­pi­tal work­er Ja­maal Watts was gunned down at the St James Med­ical Com­plex.

Khan, who has had some ex­pe­ri­ence in polic­ing the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, said he in­tends to use his ex­pe­ri­ence from the East­ern Di­vi­sion to fight crime in the na­tion’s cap­i­tal.

“The time spent at both places has giv­en me valu­able in­sights in­to crime pre­ven­tion and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment,” he said.

“At both di­vi­sions, we fo­cused on in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven op­er­a­tions, com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, and strength­en­ing of part­ner­ships with all stake­hold­ers. These strate­gies are high­ly adapt­able and are an in­te­gral part of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’s vi­o­lence re­duc­tion strat­e­gy.

“I be­lieve that by con­tin­u­ing to build on what was pre­vi­ous­ly done by the for­mer ACP and con­tin­u­ing to ap­ply the vi­o­lence re­duc­tion strate­gies, we can see a sig­nif­i­cant crime re­duc­tion.”

East­ern Di­vi­sion

Trinidad’s east coast is of­ten used by smug­glers to trans­port drugs, guns, and mi­grants from neigh­bour­ing Venezuela.

While po­lice have faced chal­lenges in quelling the in­flux of con­tra­band due to the sev­er­al coves and in­lets lo­cat­ed in To­co and Ma­yaro, gang vi­o­lence is an emerg­ing threat in the di­vi­sion.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Sep­tem­ber 16, there were 41 mur­ders in the East­ern Di­vi­sion, com­pared to 22 for the same pe­ri­od in 2023. Flare-ups in vi­o­lence in San­gre Grande, To­co, and Man­zanil­la have been at­trib­uted to an on­go­ing gang war. Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors say the gang feuds in­volve dif­fer­ent cliques of gangs in East­ern Trinidad and cer­tain ar­eas have seen in­volve­ment from crim­i­nals in Cara­po, Mal­oney, Arou­ca, and Beetham Gar­dens.

Snr Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette was as­signed to the East­ern Di­vi­sion, which stretch­es from Matelot in the north to Rio Claro in the south, cov­ers Trinidad’s east coast and is bor­dered by the North­ern Di­vi­sion North, the Cen­tral and South­ern Di­vi­sions.

Through­out his law en­force­ment ca­reer, Pa­ponette has been as­signed to sev­er­al in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing units, in­clud­ing the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, CID, the Crim­i­nal Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit, the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) and North­ern Di­vi­sion North.

Pa­ponette said he was con­fi­dent his years of ex­pe­ri­ence in dif­fer­ent elite units would be an as­set to man­ag­ing the East­ern Di­vi­sion’s polic­ing re­sources while for­mu­lat­ing an ef­fec­tive an­ti-crime strat­e­gy.

“I have served in var­i­ous lead­er­ship ca­pac­i­ties across the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, tack­ling some of the most chal­leng­ing is­sues, from or­gan­ised crime and vi­o­lent gangs to nar­cotics and high-pro­file in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“I have al­ways be­lieved that ef­fec­tive polic­ing is not just about law en­force­ment but about cre­at­ing part­ner­ships with the com­mu­ni­ty.

“To the res­i­dents of the East­ern Di­vi­sion, I want to say that my ap­proach will be root­ed in open­ness and gen­uine col­lab­o­ra­tion. I recog­nise that the safe­ty and well-be­ing of this com­mu­ni­ty are not achieved through polic­ing alone but through strong re­la­tion­ships be­tween the po­lice and the peo­ple.”

Pa­ponette suc­ceeds Snr Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne, who of­fi­cers say was the short­est serv­ing head of the East­ern Di­vi­sion, hav­ing been ap­point­ed in June.

North­ern Di­vi­sion

The sheer size and pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty of the North­ern Di­vi­sion have made it a dif­fi­cult area to po­lice over the years. The Di­vi­sion cov­ers a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the east-west cor­ri­dor, in­clud­ing the North East­ern, North Cen­tral and North­ern North di­vi­sions. It is man­aged by a sin­gle ACP and three Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dents, ef­fec­tive­ly be­gins in Mor­vant and ends in Cu­mu­to, in­clud­ing a mix of ur­ban town­ships, sprawl­ing rur­al farm­land, dense­ly forest­ed hill­sides, hos­pi­tals, schools, gov­ern­ment of­fices, three pris­ons, and an in­ter­na­tion­al air­port.

It was pre­vi­ous­ly head­ed by Ari­ma na­tive ACP Os­wain Subero and ex­pe­ri­enced a drop in mur­der toll in all three seg­ments, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from CA­PA. From Jan­u­ary 1 to Sep­tem­ber 16, the North East­ern Di­vi­sion had 52 mur­ders com­pared to 59 for the same pe­ri­od last year; the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion re­port­ed 35 mur­ders this year com­pared to 56 in 2023; while the North­ern Di­vi­sion North had 67 mur­ders last year, com­pared to 44 this year.

Subero, who has since been as­signed to the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, said he would have to re­fer to the three Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dents of the North East­ern, North Cen­tral and North­ern North di­vi­sions on what could be at­trib­uted to the suc­cess.

When asked if he felt be­ing a long-time Ari­ma res­i­dent was an ad­van­tage in for­mu­lat­ing strate­gies for the area, Subero said while his knowl­edge of the area helped in un­der­stand­ing the lay­out and res­i­dents, he cred­it­ed his team for the good work.

“The knowl­edge of of­fi­cers, es­pe­cial­ly ASP Ish­mael Pitt, who has the prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence of the di­vi­sion,” he said.

An of­fi­cer as­signed to an in­tel­li­gence unit North­ern Di­vi­sion said the drop in mur­ders was due to the TTPS ‘blue line’ op­er­a­tions, which tem­porar­i­ly as­signed of­fi­cers from dif­fer­ent sec­tions to op­er­a­tional units ear­li­er this year. He said the en­hanced num­bers al­lowed for wider cov­er­age of ar­eas for pa­trols, search­es, and road­blocks.

“Ba­si­cal­ly it was a sit­u­a­tion where they flood­ed the streets with po­lice. There were a lot of house search­es and just al­lo­cat­ing more man­pow­er and ask­ing for even more of­fi­cers to come out and per­form du­ties.”

Subero is suc­ceed­ed by the for­mer head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, ACP Rishi Singh.

The North­ern Di­vi­sion was not the on­ly area where a drop in mur­ders was ob­served for the year so far. The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion has seen a slight de­crease of nine per cent be­tween Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber and the South West­ern Di­vi­sion re­port­ed a 13 per cent drop in mur­ders.

Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion: No grace pe­ri­od for ACPS

Vice pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) act­ing ASP Ish­mael Pitt called on ju­nior of­fi­cers to give their full sup­port to the new­ly ap­point­ed lead­ers. He not­ed that clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders and their sub­or­di­nates would en­hance work­flow and strength­en the op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ties in high-crime di­vi­sions.

Pitt said ju­nior of­fi­cers had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to guide their lead­ers, as any crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive would hinge on their co­op­er­a­tion.

“If it is we don’t have that lev­el of buy-in and that lev­el of com­mit­ment from our ju­nior of­fi­cers, then we are spin­ning top in mud, and for that rea­son, we will urge se­nior of­fi­cers placed in such a po­si­tion to un­der­stand the dy­nam­ics and even the work­ing con­di­tions and the type of chal­lenges ju­nior of­fi­cers are faced with,” he said.

“In un­der­stand­ing these things, we can utilise prop­er de­ci­sion-mak­ing to mit­i­gate and en­sure our of­fi­cers are pre­sent­ed with the best work­ing en­vi­ron­ment so we can get a more pro­duc­tive po­lice of­fi­cer.”

Recog­nis­ing that some of the of­fi­cers would now be re­spon­si­ble for di­vi­sions in which they had no pri­or ex­pe­ri­ence, Pitt said an ad­just­ment to the ge­og­ra­phy, de­mo­graph­ics, and chal­lenges is in­evitable. How­ev­er, he stressed that of­fi­cers should get ac­quaint­ed with their new dis­tricts soon­er rather than lat­er.

“Hav­ing in­ti­mate knowl­edge of these com­mu­ni­ties and the cul­ture with­in these com­mu­ni­ties goes a long way to the type of de­ci­sions we have to make.

“Change is con­tin­u­ous; for that rea­son, the or­gan­i­sa­tion will con­tin­ue to change in or­der to meet the chal­lenge and the de­mands.”

As Sep­tem­ber draws to a close, there are ef­fec­tive­ly three months left in 2024. Be­tween De­cem­ber and Feb­ru­ary, po­lice in all di­vi­sions and units are ac­ti­vat­ed to pro­vide height­ened se­cu­ri­ty for the Christ­mas and Car­ni­val sea­sons. This large-scale mo­bil­i­sa­tion of re­sources with­in a few months de­mands that the new­ly mint­ed com­man­ders learn their di­vi­sions for the best re­sults.

New Ap­point­ments (put in box)

• ACP North West Ryan Khan - Re­spon­si­ble for West­ern and Port of Spain Di­vi­sions

• ACP North­ern Rishi Singh: Re­spon­si­ble for North East­ern, North Cen­tral and North­ern Di­vi­sion North

• Snr Supt North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Michael Pierre: Re­spon­si­ble for St Joseph, Mara­cas St Joseph, Tu­na­puna, Pi­ar­co, and Arou­ca sta­tion dis­tricts

• Snr Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette East­ern Di­vi­sion: Re­spon­si­ble for Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande, Matelot, Ma­yaro, Man­zanil­la, and Rio Claro dis­tricts

• ACP South Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar: Re­spon­si­ble for Cen­tral, South­ern and South West­ern di­vi­sions

• ACP To­ba­go Os­wain Subero: Re­spon­si­ble for To­ba­go Di­vi­sion

• ACP Ad­min­is­tra­tion Richard Smith

• Snr Supt In­ter-Agency Task Force Win­ston Ma­haraj • Snr Supt Guard and Emer­gency Branch Neil Bran­don John