Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is ad­mit­ting that the po­lice has no au­thor­i­ty to or­der any­one to re­turn to their homes but he is urg­ing the pub­lic to sup­port the po­lice and to re­spect of­fi­cers as they con­duct road­blocks which he said they are well with­in their au­thor­i­ty to do at any time.

In a lengthy press re­lease yes­ter­day Grif­fith re­it­er­at­ed in this pe­ri­od of COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the Po­lice Ser­vice is com­mit­ted to en­forc­ing laws in­clu­sive of the new reg­u­la­tions as stip­u­lat­ed in the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance, and would con­tin­ue to con­duct sys­tems and op­er­a­tional tools to as­sist in us­ing per­sua­sion to have per­sons ad­here to their ba­sic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­main at home, un­less they are an em­ploy­ee of busi­ness­es pro­vid­ing es­sen­tial goods and ser­vices, or a cus­tomer ac­quir­ing such es­sen­tial goods and ser­vices.

Grif­fith again took to task those who are not trained in law en­force­ment telling them “to be care­ful how they make state­ments in re­la­tion to the op­er­a­tions of the TTPS.”

Grif­fith and the Po­lice Ser­vice have been un­der se­vere crit­i­cism in the face of re­cent road­blocks which have re­sult­ed in at least one ac­tivist chal­leng­ing the ac­tion of the po­lice via the le­gal sys­tem.

Yes­ter­day Grif­fith ad­mit­ted his of­fi­cers have found them­selves in a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion of en­forc­ing the law and try­ing to save lives.

“Whilst it is un­der­stand­able as with any or­gan­i­sa­tion, the TTPS would make mis­takes as we com­prise of hu­man be­ings, so we would not be per­fect, the CoP wish­es to re­mind the na­tion that his of­fi­cers are in a very dif­fi­cult po­si­tion in try­ing not to cross the lines be­tween en­forc­ing the law, and us­ing per­sua­sion to as­sist in sav­ing lives.”

He said de­spite the crit­i­cisms he has held fast to his po­si­tion that “po­lice of­fi­cers can­not or­der any­one to re­main in­doors.”

Grif­fith urged the pub­lic not to “take bas­ket” from at­tor­neys who he said “prob­a­bly had a de­sire as a child to be a po­lice of­fi­cer, and now are try­ing to pre­tend that they know the role and func­tion of the po­lice of­fi­cer bet­ter than a po­lice of­fi­cer.”

He said po­lice of­fi­cers “be­fore, dur­ing, and af­ter COVID-19, would have the au­thor­i­ty to con­duct road blocks and the au­thor­i­ty to ask you of your planned des­ti­na­tion.”

He added with­out a state of emer­gency and a cur­few, the po­lice “does not have the au­thor­i­ty to or­der you to re­turn to your home. These are two to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent mat­ters,” he said.

Grif­fith is now ap­peal­ing to mem­bers of the pub­lic to sup­port the po­lice dur­ing such road­blocks. He is al­so ap­peal­ing to the pub­lic to be “re­spect­ful and as­sist the po­lice in the con­duct of their op­er­a­tions.” He is al­so man­dat­ing his of­fi­cers to do like­wise.

He said the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and at­tor­neys for cer­tain clients had made state­ments as it per­tains to the au­thor­i­ty of the TTPS dur­ing this pe­ri­od, “some of these out­ra­geous com­ments in­clude at­tor­neys mak­ing com­ments to some that the Po­lice can­not ask per­sons for in­for­ma­tion, as to where they are go­ing and al­so that per­sons can sue the State if po­lice con­duct road­blocks.” But he urged the pub­lic not to take ‘bas­ket” from at­tor­neys.

He crit­i­cised crim­i­nol­o­gist Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran who, as re­port­ed in the me­dia, said a bet­ter de­gree of train­ing in com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing is re­quired to deal with po­lice op­er­a­tions dur­ing such road­blocks.

Grif­fith said De­osaran has shown his in­abil­i­ty to un­der­stand how the TTPS op­er­ates and, if he had any train­ing in law en­force­ment, he would have un­der­stood what tech­nique the TTPS was us­ing dur­ing this COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, and what is be­ing done to save lives.