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Thursday, July 17, 2025

Homeland Security Minister prefers bulletproof vests over body cams

by

Dareece Polo
29 days ago
20250618
Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander delivers an address at the handover of the TTPS leadership from former acting top cop Junior Benjamin to Allister Guevarro at the Police Academy, St James, yesterday.

Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander delivers an address at the handover of the TTPS leadership from former acting top cop Junior Benjamin to Allister Guevarro at the Police Academy, St James, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

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.”


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