Gail Alexan­der

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) De­part­men­tal Or­der of 2019 in­cludes the use of tear gas - and if there are con­cerns about this af­fect­ing chil­dren, par­ents must be con­cerned about not putting their young chil­dren in harm’s way.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley made these points in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day in re­sponse to queries from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP Rod­ney Charles.

Charles ini­tial­ly asked Row­ley if there is a “Use of Force” pol­i­cy that in­cludes the use of tear gas as a crowd con­trol mea­sure. It was an ob­vi­ous ref­er­ence to last Sun­day’s protest by the Push Back group and mem­bers of some unions at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, where many said they were protest­ing so-called “manda­to­ry vac­cines.”

Po­lice fired tear gas to dis­perse a crowd of about 300 which was said to be un­ruly hours af­ter the ac­tu­al event. Po­lice said no per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the march. Pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions al­so lim­it gath­er­ings to 10.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, con­demn­ing the tear gas use, had said in a state­ment that tear gas “had not been used in this coun­try since 1975.” A video had shown a fa­ther flush­ing out his two sons’ eyes with wa­ter af­ter they were af­fect­ed by the tear gas in the Sa­van­nah event.

Yes­ter­day in Par­lia­ment, Row­ley said if Charles was se­ri­ous about the “Use of Force” pol­i­cy query, Charles would have known that in the po­lice ser­vice, “... there is and has been for the longest while, a use of force pol­i­cy which in­cludes the use of tear gas as a crowd con­trol mea­sure.”

Row­ley point­ed out that TTPS De­part­men­tal Or­der 126 of 2019 in­cludes the use of force pol­i­cy and that ad­dress­es tear gas use by the Guard and Emer­gency Branch. Row­ley added that Charles must know that but Charles was on­ly seek­ing to “en­gage in mis­in­for­ma­tion and mis­chief.”

Charles asked if the or­der took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the pres­ence of chil­dren, the el­der­ly and passers­by be­fore use.

Row­ley said, “I don’t know of any young chil­dren who find them­selves mak­ing de­ci­sions to go out and break the law, caus­ing po­lice to fire tear gas at them. If you’re con­cerned about young chil­dren that you have, you as par­ent must be con­cerned about not putting your young chil­dren in harm’s way!”

On Tues­day, for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, who was in charge of TTPS in 2019, took is­sue with the po­lice’s use of the tear gas last Sun­day. He sought to make a dis­tinc­tion be­tween that and the 2020 in­ci­dent when tear gas was used on a group of protest­ing Nel­son Street youths com­ing through Port-of-Spain, head­ing for the Red House.

How­ev­er, an­oth­er Sa­van­nah protest is be­ing planned for Sat­ur­day.

On Tues­day, First Wave Move­ment leader Umar Ab­dul­lah sent a re­minder to me­dia that he had no­ti­fied act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob of last Sun­day’s Push Back ac­tion. In his let­ter to Ja­cob, he’d al­so said the First Wave group would have sim­i­lar “peace­ful demon­stra­tion” at the Sa­van­nah this Sat­ur­day against vac­ci­na­tions and safe zones.

Ab­dul­lah’s let­ter stat­ed he had re­quest­ed po­lice pres­ence at both events “to en­sure all pub­lic health pro­to­cols” were ob­served and main­tained.