Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj has con­vened a high-lev­el stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion to ad­dress de­lays in in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, with the aim of im­prov­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion among over­sight and law en­force­ment agen­cies.

The meet­ing, held at the Gov­ern­ment Plaza’s Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, brought to­geth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre (TTF­SC).

Al­so in at­ten­dance were At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Sen­a­tor John Je­re­mie, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, PCA Di­rec­tor David West, and TTF­SC Di­rec­tor Der­rick Sankar.

The ses­sion fo­cused on op­er­a­tional chal­lenges faced by the PCA dur­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly de­lays that im­pact case out­comes and pub­lic con­fi­dence. Par­tic­i­pants ex­plored prac­ti­cal strate­gies to strength­en in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion and ac­cel­er­ate in­ves­tiga­tive time­lines.

The agen­cies reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to col­lab­o­ra­tion, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and con­tin­u­ous di­a­logue. They agreed that a re­port sum­maris­ing the meet­ing’s dis­cus­sions and rec­om­men­da­tions would be sub­mit­ted to the Cab­i­net.

In clos­ing re­marks, Min­is­ter Ma­haraj thanked the par­tic­i­pants for their en­gage­ment and high­light­ed the im­por­tance of sus­tained co­op­er­a­tion in ad­vanc­ing jus­tice and pro­tect­ing the rights of all cit­i­zens.