A po­lice of­fi­cer as­signed to the Cap­i­tal City Pa­trol Unit’s (CCPU) Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion has been de­nied bail by Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor, af­ter he ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Fifth Mag­is­trates’ Court for al­leged­ly so­lic­it­ing and re­ceiv­ing a sum of mon­ey from a vic­tim of rob­bery with vi­o­lence.

De­on Ince went be­fore Ba­boolal-Gafoor on Mon­day and the mat­ter was ad­journed to Oc­to­ber 23.

In a state­ment, the TTPS said Ince was ar­rest­ed dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise by of­fi­cers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB).

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, on Oc­to­ber 6, a woman walk­ing along Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, was robbed of a quan­ti­ty of T&T cur­ren­cy, US cur­ren­cy, her pass­port and oth­er per­son­al items.

This in­ci­dent went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia.

The TTPS said lat­er that day, a po­lice of­fi­cer ap­proached the vic­tim at the Nel­son Street Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Plan­nings, Port-of-Spain, and she re­port­ed to him what hap­pened to her ear­li­er. He al­leged­ly as­sured her that by mid­night he would get back her stolen items.

The TTPS said on Oc­to­ber 7, the of­fi­cer again met with the vic­tim and al­leged­ly as­sured her that he would get back her items, but she had to re­ward him for his ef­forts and a fur­ther re­ward when he re­trieved the items for her.

The woman made a re­port at the of­fice of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau on Oc­to­ber 10, and WPC Pa­keera was as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

On Oc­to­ber 11, the woman met with the of­fi­cer at In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, where she al­leged­ly hand­ed over the sum of $1,000 to the of­fi­cer.

He was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers from the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, in­clud­ing ASP Fran­cis, Cpl Joseph and WPC Pa­keera.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Suzette Mar­tin and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Mon­trichard su­per­vised the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

On Oc­to­ber 13, af­ter meet­ing with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, SC, he ad­vised that the ac­cused be charged for the of­fence of cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing the sum of $1,000 as a re­ward to do an act about his role as a po­lice of­fi­cer, con­trary to the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act.

On Oc­to­ber 6, 62-year-old Mar­a­lyn Cal­len­der-Mor­ri­son—the hold­er of dual cit­i­zen­ship for T&T and Amer­i­ca—was re­lieved of $170,000 in cash af­ter be­ing beat­en by the ban­dits.

Fol­low­ing the or­deal, Cal­len­der-Mor­ri­son told the T&T Guardian she was fol­lowed by a gang of men from a bank on In­de­pen­dence Square af­ter with­draw­ing $65,000 in cash to re­pair her home in To­co. She al­so had US$15,000 in cash, two cheque books, bank cards, a dri­ver’s li­cence, a cell phone val­ued at US$1,000 and a pass­port in her hand­bag. She said the men dragged her and beat her.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds lat­er apol­o­gised for the high rate of crime in the coun­try while speak­ing dur­ing the 2023/2024 Bud­get de­bate in the Low­er House on Oc­to­ber 9.

Hinds said, “I want to apol­o­gise to the peo­ple of T&T, those who have lost dear ones. Those per­sons who are trau­ma­tised by some of our cit­i­zens and per­haps oth­ers, in home in­va­sions, in rapes, in in­cest.

“That woman who was dragged on Char­lotte Street a few days ago pained all of our hearts.

“I, on be­half of those of us who be­have in those ways; who choose crime in some cas­es as a busi­ness mod­el, I apol­o­gise to the rest of us and give you the as­sur­ance as min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, lead­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, we will con­tin­ue to put up the walls, put up the fences and fight like hell to pro­tect you from that.”