DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

While Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro wants to bol­ster pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS)–some­thing that can be achieved with the use of body cam­eras–Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says he prefers that of­fi­cers get bul­let­proof vests over the de­vices.

Alexan­der was speak­ing with re­porters fol­low­ing the his­toric han­dover of the TTPS lead­er­ship from for­mer act­ing top cop Ju­nior Ben­jamin to Gue­var­ro at the Po­lice Acad­e­my, St James, yes­ter­day.

The event fea­tured a per­for­mance by the Po­lice Band and a cer­e­mo­ni­al march, along with trib­utes from the TTPS Ca­nine Unit, Mount­ed Branch and mo­tor­cy­clists in ho­n­our of Ben­jamin and Gue­var­ro.

Two days be­fore, Alexan­der told a Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee that Gov­ern­ment need­ed $25 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal in­come for the TTPS to fund 3,000 body cam­eras as part of the high­er fig­ure of $119 mil­lion for the ser­vice. He al­so said there are cur­rent­ly 970 cam­eras in use by the TTPS.

De­spite this ap­proval, Alexan­der yes­ter­day said: “My thing would have been to en­cour­age bul­let­proof vests be­fore body cams. And I’ll tell you why...we need to pro­tect the of­fi­cer in the line of du­ty and he must feel that he is be­ing sup­port­ed and pro­tect­ed be­fore he is able to go out there and re­al­ly per­form his du­ty.”

He added, “What are you go­ing to put the cam­eras on? An­swer that for me, all the bul­let­proof vests are out­dat­ed. Are you go­ing to stick the cam­eras on your jer­sey? So, show the of­fi­cer that you care about his life and that of his fam­i­ly be­cause he sup­ports his fam­i­ly. So, show him that you care about him.”

How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged the im­por­tance of body cam­eras in help­ing of­fi­cers prove their in­no­cence while al­so build­ing pub­lic trust that their ac­tions are ac­cu­rate­ly rep­re­sent­ed.

The min­is­ter said while Gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to al­lo­cate sig­nif­i­cant re­sources to the TTPS, it will al­so mon­i­tor how they are used to en­sure val­ue for mon­ey.

Speak­ing ear­li­er dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Alexan­der praised Ben­jamin for ex­em­plary and ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice.

He al­so em­pha­sised that Gue­var­ro’s ap­point­ment was more than sym­bol­ic, as it is al­so backed by an ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­ment to equip and sup­port the TTPS dur­ing what he de­scribed as “try­ing times.”

“The peo­ple of this na­tion are watch­ing, and most im­por­tant­ly, they are de­pend­ing on you,” he said to the new top cop.

Alexan­der al­so out­lined a check­list of pri­or­i­ties he hopes Gue­var­ro will ad­dress, chief among them restor­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the TTPS.

“I urge you to strength­en the ser­vice pro­fes­sion­al­ism, re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence and cham­pi­on the in­no­va­tion in polic­ing. We want you to build bridges with the ser­vice and be­tween the ser­vice and the so­ci­ety you serve,” he said.

“Let your tenure be marked with uni­ty in the ranks, mod­erni­sa­tion of po­lice ap­proach­es, the uptick in the solve rate, a down­ward trend in re­ports to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty of er­rant of­fi­cers and jus­tice in every ac­tion.”

Alexan­der, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer him­self, al­so urged po­lice of­fi­cers to stand with the com­mis­sion­er, call­ing them “guardians of democ­ra­cy, pro­tec­tors of space, sym­bol of hope of every cit­i­zen in this re­pub­lic.”

He al­so said Wayne Mys­tar’s ap­point­ment as deputy com­mis­sion­er will be ad­dressed in the House. He said while the for­mal mo­tion was de­layed in the House last Fri­day, the act­ing role had al­ready been “ful­filled in prac­tice.”