ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

While po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings dom­i­nate com­plaints in Trinidad, To­ba­go faces a very dif­fer­ent polic­ing chal­lenge. Over the past decade, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has logged 553 ini­tial re­ports and 351 for­mal com­plaints of To­ba­go po­lice of­fi­cers show­ing dis­cred­itable or rude be­hav­iour.

Speak­ing at a PCA con­sul­ta­tion in Canaan on Thurs­day night, PCA Di­rec­tor David West re­vealed that To­ba­go has seen on­ly three po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings over the past decade in 2019, 2021, and 2024.

In stark con­trast, Trinidad record­ed 31 po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, re­sult­ing in 48 fa­tal­i­ties this year alone.

“Since I’ve been the di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, com­plaints have gone over 700 com­plaints in Trinidad and To­ba­go. To­ba­go...it’s get­ting big­ger and big­ger—more and more.”

He said in To­ba­go from 2014 to 2015, the au­thor­i­ty had 66 ini­tial re­ports.

“Now, an ini­tial re­port is a re­port that, when we first get it from you, it may or may not fall or be­come a com­plaint. So, from those 66 ini­tial re­ports, 28 be­came com­plaints. One was for­ward­ed to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and then none to the DPP.

“So, for the ten years we’ve been there, we’ve had 553 mat­ters—ini­tial re­ports, 351 com­plaints, 23 mat­ters for­ward­ed to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, six mat­ters to the DPP, four mat­ters for­ward­ed to both, and three mat­ters for ad­vice.”

From 2023 to 2024, the PCA in­ves­ti­gat­ed 131 dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters in To­ba­go, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions of dis­cred­itable con­duct, ne­glect of du­ty, un­law­ful use of au­thor­i­ty, and dis­obe­di­ence to or­ders.

“Dis­cred­itable con­duct, we have 46 of­fi­cers re­port­ed for the year 2023-2024. Ne­glect of du­ty, we are in­ves­ti­gat­ing 33 of­fi­cers; un­law­ful or un­nec­es­sary ex­er­cise of au­thor­i­ty 33 of­fi­cers. Dis­obe­di­ence to or­ders 13, cor­rupt prac­tices five, false­hood or pre­var­i­ca­tion, one,” West said.

The PCA di­rec­tor ex­plained that crim­i­nal al­le­ga­tions had al­so sur­faced, rang­ing from as­sault and firearm of­fences to prop­er­ty dam­age. The Scar­bor­ough and Shir­van Road Po­lice Sta­tions record­ed the high­est num­ber of com­plaints this year, each with 11 cas­es, fol­lowed by Crown Point with six.

Heads of the To­ba­go TTPS Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Earl Elie and ACP Os­wain Subero could not be reached for com­ment.

The Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son said his as­so­ci­a­tion was not con­cerned by the da­ta since it was all al­le­ga­tions and com­plaints.