Jensen La Vende

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin is ad­vis­ing that any­one who presents them­selves as a po­lice of­fi­cer, wear­ing the po­lice tac­ti­cal uni­form may be a crim­i­nal in dis­guise.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Ben­jamin said the killing of a man in Cou­va on Sun­day, re­in­forces the po­lice’s dri­ve to re­duce the num­ber of of­fi­cers with ac­cess to the uni­form.

Last month Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher gave her of­fi­cers less than a week to re­turn the uni­forms in a bid to ad­dress grow­ing con­cerns of men dressed as po­lice in tac­ti­cal wear com­mit­ting crimes.

On Sun­day, a man, who is yet to be iden­ti­fied, was gunned down by two men dressed as po­lice of­fi­cers.

Homi­cide of­fi­cers said around 2 pm, the vic­tim and a 30-year-old man went to a se­clud­ed bushy area in Cou­va where the vic­tim was sup­posed to sell the man gold.

The 30-year-old said while there, two men dressed in po­lice tac­ti­cal pants, a jer­sey, and what ap­peared to be a po­lice badge, ap­proached and opened fire. The man was shot in the face and hand while the oth­er was shot in the back and head. He died on the spot.

The two shoot­ers then took the dead man’s car.

The oth­er vic­tim man­aged to make his way to the Cou­va Main Road where he was as­sist­ed and tak­en to the Cou­va Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Com­ment­ing on the killing, Ben­jamin said it em­pha­sised the need for the mon­i­tor­ing of the po­lice tac­ti­cal uni­forms.

He added that the ex­ec­u­tive took a de­ci­sion that no of­fi­cers, be it first or sec­ond di­vi­sion, should be seen in pub­lic in the uni­form, ex­cept for of­fi­cers in the four au­tho­rised units - Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), Na­tion­al Op­er­at­ing Task Force and the Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion. Of­fi­cers from those four units au­tho­rised must al­so be ac­com­pa­nied by a po­lice of­fi­cer in reg­u­lar uni­form, dis­play­ing their badges.

“That is why we re­moved that uni­form, so when peo­ple see that uni­form out­side they must know that it is not po­lice im­me­di­ate­ly."

He added that both the City Po­lice and Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad were asked to dis­con­tin­ue the use of the tac­ti­cal uni­forms.

“If you see it (po­lice tac­ti­cal uni­forms) out there, think twice, that is not po­lice, be­cause we are not go­ing to be a part of that, we are about sav­ing lives.”

Asked for an up­date on the po­lice re­call of the uni­forms and whether all were re­turned, Ben­jamin said that is still be­ing checked as the di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders were tasked with tal­ly­ing the num­ber of uni­forms re­turned, which will be cross-ref­er­enced with the po­lice Stores De­part­ment.