Jan­nelle Bernard

jan­nelle.bernard@cnc3.co.tt

The use of po­lice tac­ti­cal wear or repli­cas of the TTPS uni­form in crime is trou­bling, but the ma­jor is­sues are gun con­trol and leg­is­la­tion.

In ad­di­tion, po­lice of­fi­cers are feel­ing be­wil­dered and de­mo­ti­vat­ed amid what has been deemed a “crime pan­dem­ic,” as they be­lieve that those in au­thor­i­ty do not care about them.

Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent Ag ASP Gideon Dick­son said so dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day.

ASP Dick­son said that on­ly a small per­cent­age of crim­i­nal acts are be­ing com­mit­ted us­ing po­lice uni­forms. He said the greater per­cent­age of mur­ders were be­ing com­mit­ted with firearms, yet a man could get ar­rest­ed with a firearm, go to court, and come back out al­most the same day.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing there is room for im­prove­ment in the ser­vice, he added, “The is­sue fac­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go now and fac­ing the po­lice ser­vice is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the great de­gree of tac­ti­cal uni­forms or uni­form ap­par­el close to that of po­lice uni­forms that is com­mit­ting the 500-plus mur­ders that we are fac­ing to­day. We need to un­der­stand that at this point in time, the greater per­cent­age of mur­ders are com­mit­ted with firearms, yet still, a man could get ar­rest­ed with a firearm, go to court, and come back out al­most the same day.”

The TTPSS­WA head said, “You are say­ing in the di­vi­sions where there have al­ready been over 505 mur­ders to date the of­fi­cers who are charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing the crime fight to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments, our task force in par­tic­u­lar, and to a less­er ex­tent our ca­nine and 999 units, you are say­ing their uni­forms need to be con­sis­tent with our cus­tomer ser­vice.

“Whether you work in tac­ti­cal or you work in blue and grey, cus­tomer ser­vice is part of our man­date, and we are in­grained in it, we be­lieve in it, there are doc­u­ments to sup­port it, we have a whole unit treat­ing with it on a day-to-day ba­sis.”

ASP Dick­son said po­lice of­fi­cers are work­ing un­der im­mense pres­sure, but it seems to be with­out the sup­port of the Gov­ern­ment.

“Of­fi­cers are not pleased; we are not pleased with the fact that there has been an es­ca­la­tion of mur­ders, and every mur­der is one too much, but apart from that, we of­ten feel that we are work­ing with our hands tied be­hind our back. There is no re­al con­sid­er­a­tion for po­lice of­fi­cers com­ing from those in au­thor­i­ty, and even those who are re­spon­si­ble for lead­ing us at this point in time, and that is so sad and so un­for­tu­nate.

“The feel­ings of the of­fi­cers on the ground, sim­ply put, per­sons are feel­ing be­wil­dered, per­sons are feel­ing de­mo­ti­vat­ed, and this is not healthy for Trinidad and To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly as we em­bark in the last quar­ter of the year and we are treat­ing with as deemed by those in au­thor­i­ty, a crime pan­dem­ic.”

Scot­land to meet with TTPSS­WA

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land, who said he does not want to es­ca­late any is­sues with the po­lice of­fi­cers and will meet with the as­so­ci­a­tion to pro­duce re­sults.

The as­so­ci­a­tion is of­fer­ing a $20,000 re­ward for any­one with in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest of the sus­pects in­volved in the mur­der of PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son on Sat­ur­day night dur­ing a rob­bery at­tempt at a su­per­mar­ket in Ari­ma.