SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A TTPS-is­sued badge and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card of a po­lice­man, who has been on ex­tend­ed sick leave for over a year, as well as po­lice tac­ti­cal wear, were among sev­er­al law en­force­ment items found dur­ing a raid in Ma­yaro ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Army cloth­ing was al­so re­cov­ered.

Po­lice re­vealed that the of­fi­cer, whose badge and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card were found in the house, nev­er re­port­ed his cre­den­tials stolen.

Checks by po­lice al­so showed that the po­lice of­fi­cer’s TTPS badge and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card were is­sued in 2018, but he has been on sick leave for over a year and did not live at the ad­dress in Guayagua­yare.

A 31-year-old oc­cu­pant of the house was ar­rest­ed and will like­ly face charges.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said a fake pel­let gun was among the long list of items found un­der a mat­tress af­ter po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a High Court search war­rant for firearms and am­mu­ni­tion around 3.45 am at the house at La Sa­vanne Cir­cu­lar, New­lands, Guayagua­yare.

Among the oth­er items re­cov­ered were a blue T-shirt with the po­lice em­blem on it, black car­go pants, a blue op­er­a­tional jack­et with two TTPS shoul­der patch­es and two front po­lice patch­es, a black cap marked po­lice, a ski mask, two long cam­ou­flage trousers and an army-type pat­tern T-shirt.

Last Thurs­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher or­dered that all po­lice of­fi­cers, ex­cept those as­signed to four spe­cial units, re­turn all tac­ti­cal uni­forms and re­vert to the grey and blue kits.

The di­rec­tive which took ef­fect on Oc­to­ber 18, was in re­sponse to sev­er­al in­ci­dents of crim­i­nals pos­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers to com­mit crimes in­clud­ing kid­nap­pings, ex­tor­tion and even mur­ders.

The raid was part of an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed in the Ma­yaro dis­trict be­tween 3 am and 7 am by of­fi­cers of the Ma­yaro CID and TTPS Ca­nine Unit co-or­di­nat­ed by Snr Supt Pa­ponette and su­per­vised by Ag Sgt Mo­hammed and Cpl Jaikaran.

A 20-year-old woman from Charles Street, Guayagua­yare, was al­so ar­rest­ed for ob­scene lan­guage and re­sist­ing ar­rest.

At­tempts to reach DCP Curt Si­mon and East­ern Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Christo­pher Pam­ponette about the dis­cov­ery were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

Paray: Threat to pub­lic safe­ty

Mean­while, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray lament­ed that the re­cent an­ti-crime ex­er­cis­es in Ma­yaro have ex­posed a deeply trou­bling is­sue—the pos­ses­sion of po­lice uni­forms, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and gear by civil­ians. 

He said, “This is not just alarm­ing; it is a di­rect threat to pub­lic safe­ty. The mis­use of po­lice uni­forms to com­mit crimes is a se­ri­ous of­fence that un­der­mines the in­tegri­ty of law en­force­ment and puts in­no­cent lives at risk. There is no place for this kind of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in our so­ci­ety.

The fact that po­lice para­pher­na­lia was found in a pri­vate res­i­dence rais­es ur­gent ques­tions about how these items were ob­tained and what they have been used for. “Im­per­son­at­ing law en­force­ment is not a pet­ty crime; it is a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to de­ceive the pub­lic and ex­ploit their trust for un­law­ful pur­pos­es. This kind of be­hav­iour must be met with the full force of the law.”

He called on the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to take im­me­di­ate and de­ci­sive ac­tion to pre­vent the mis­use of po­lice uni­forms and gear. 

He said strict ac­count­abil­i­ty mea­sures must be en­forced to track and se­cure all po­lice equip­ment.

Paray added that any breach in pro­to­col re­gard­ing the han­dling of law en­force­ment gear must be met with se­vere penal­ties.

“We can­not al­low crim­i­nals to mas­quer­ade as po­lice of­fi­cers, prey­ing on the very com­mu­ni­ties they are meant to pro­tect,” the MP added.

He al­so called on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds to en­sure that this mat­ter is treat­ed with the se­ri­ous­ness it de­serves.

He said the peo­ple of Ma­yaro, and all cit­i­zens need to be as­sured that the po­lice are in con­trol of their own ranks and equip­ment. Paray said any­thing less would be a fail­ure in the du­ty to pro­tect the pub­lic.