Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice of­fi­cers in one of the four po­lice sta­tions with­in the con­stituen­cy of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, yes­ter­day rub­bished his claim that of­fi­cers lock­ing them­selves in sta­tions at night to hide from the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, one of­fi­cer, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied as he was not au­tho­rised to speak with the me­dia, said the state­ment was “reck­less.”

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) on Mon­day, Row­ley said, “It has come to my at­ten­tion, in some dis­tricts, in some in­stances, po­lice of­fi­cers, whose job it is to pro­tect us and se­cure us, in some dis­tricts at night, are so afraid of the crim­i­nals that they close the po­lice sta­tion door, turn off the light, and be in­side there hop­ing that the crim­i­nals don’t come at them,” Row­ley said.

The com­ment was con­demned by Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, who said the rea­son of­fi­cers take off the lights at night is to be able to see those out­side the po­lice sta­tion, and not out of fear.

At the West End Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers said they had no com­ment to make on the PM’s claim, while at the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion in Diego Mar­tin, of­fi­cers re­ferred Guardian Me­dia to the pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer at St James.

At the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion, one of­fi­cer an­gri­ly dis­missed the com­ment and used an ex­ple­tive to de­scribe the PM. He added that the state­ment was de­mo­ti­vat­ing and gave crim­i­nals a sense that they could now at­tack po­lice of­fi­cers with im­puni­ty, the way they do prison of­fi­cers.

“I don’t want to say it de­mo­ti­vat­ing, be­cause that word wa­ter down. But I hear the of­fi­cers and them, and they find that very reck­less. He is the man who have a seat in charge of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and when he say things like that, it gives the crim­i­nals a sense like they could at­tack we be­cause we afraid of them,” the of­fi­cer said.

The of­fi­cer com­plained that po­lice who are pro­tect­ing Row­ley as part of his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail should stop im­me­di­ate­ly and claim they are afraid.

The of­fi­cer ar­gued that at night there is a clear line of sight from the top of School Street in­to the po­lice sta­tion and if they do not take off the lights, the of­fi­cers are “sit­ting ducks” be­cause they can­not see out­side.

He said the in­for­ma­tion the Prime Min­is­ter re­ceived was mis­lead­ing and should not have been re­peat­ed in pub­lic, far less in Par­lia­ment.