Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The four mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau who han­dled the Brent Thomas case last Oc­to­ber, are said to have been so trau­ma­tised by the pub­lic crit­i­cism they have re­ceived since a re­cent judg­ment in his favour that they are now re­ceiv­ing coun­selling.

It does not stop there, how­ev­er, as their col­leagues are al­so said to be sim­i­lar­ly af­fect­ed, re­sult­ing in a sig­nif­i­cant drop in morale with­in the unit.

This was re­vealed yes­ter­day by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­SWA), which is now call­ing on par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and the pub­lic to de­sist from ridi­cul­ing the PSB of­fi­cers in­volved in the ar­rest of Thomas as the Ap­peal Court does its work.

PSB head, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Suzette Mar­tin, al­so con­firmed that coun­selling has been of­fered to her de­part­ment, and the four of­fi­cers named in Thomas’ law­suit are ben­e­fit­ting from the ser­vice.

Mar­tin al­so told Guardian Me­dia that the of­fi­cers re­main on ac­tive du­ty but de­clined to com­ment on if any con­sid­er­a­tion has been giv­en to plac­ing the of­fi­cers on leave con­sid­er­ing their men­tal state.

On April 25, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad crit­i­cised the PSB of­fi­cers in­volved in the ar­rest and clas­si­fied the op­er­a­tion in Bar­ba­dos last Oc­to­ber as an “ab­duc­tion.”

And last Wednes­day in Par­lia­ment, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour apol­o­gised to the Bar­ba­dos po­lice for what he said was the neg­a­tive light cast on them while they were mere­ly ren­der­ing as­sis­tance to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice in the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, TTP­SWA head, As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent (ASP) Gideon Dick­son, stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the of­fi­cers, yes­ter­day urged the pub­lic to put all crit­i­cisms on hold while the mat­ter is still be­fore the court.

“The TTP­SWA has viewed with in­tent scruti­ny the in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main re­gard­ing a re­cent judg­ment on a mat­ter that is still very much sub­ject to the court process. Re­fer­ring to what is pub­lic, we lay scorn on those who have used the names of our of­fi­cers as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball to ad­vance their agen­da,” Dick­son said via a me­dia re­lease.

In a sub­se­quent tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Dick­son was asked who specif­i­cal­ly he was lay­ing “scorn” on.

“With­in re­cent times since the judg­ment came out, from that time to now, you have heard per­sons in high quar­ters, low quar­ters, per­sons with po­lit­i­cal in­tent us­ing the of­fi­cers’ names and truth be told, this mat­ter is still be­fore the courts and the mat­ter has been ap­pealed but they are aware of them­selves,” Dick­son said re­fus­ing to give spe­cif­ic names.

ASP Dick­son said of­fi­cers are look­ing jeal­ous­ly up the arch­i­pel­ago to Bar­ba­dos and the sup­port its AG, Dale Mar­shall, has shown the Bar­ba­dos Po­lice Ser­vice (BPS). In ad­dress­ing Bar­ba­dos’ Par­lia­ment on May 9, Mar­shall said while the ac­tion of BPS of­fi­cers in Thomas’ ar­rest were “some­what short of ap­plic­a­ble le­gal norms,” he re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tion it should be con­sid­ered an ab­duc­tion or kid­nap­ping, adding that the BPS was mere­ly try­ing to as­sist a “sis­ter po­lice ser­vice.”

Yes­ter­day, Dick­son said the TTPS would have ap­pre­ci­at­ed sim­i­lar sup­port.

“But it is what it is, and we will con­tin­ue to do what we must do. And my of­fi­cers whose names have been used as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball, all these of­fi­cers did was their job to the best of their abil­i­ties, and they are not per­fect, but it makes no sense that we go about the way of crit­i­cis­ing them. We are part of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, so you wouldn’t want peo­ple to ridicule a judge who pro­nounces on mat­ters, so sim­i­lar­ly, our of­fi­cers did not go out there to do any mis­chief, they were just do­ing their job and they were chas­tised im­mense­ly both lo­cal and abroad.”

Dick­son said some of­fi­cers at­tached to the PSB have since been re­ceiv­ing emo­tion­al sup­port.

“I can safe­ly say it im­pact­ed on our of­fi­cers sig­nif­i­cant­ly, to the ex­tent that we have reached out to pro­vide some psy­choso­cial sup­port for the of­fi­cers and by ex­ten­sion their fam­i­ly mem­bers and the morale re­al­ly took a dip in the last month or so, and we are hop­ing the in­ter­ven­tion brings these of­fi­cers back to where they need to be.”

Firearms deal­er Thomas was at the cen­tre of po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in 2022 and was re­ar­rest­ed on Oc­to­ber 5 in Bar­ba­dos while in tran­sit to Mi­a­mi.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that Thomas was “un­law­ful­ly ab­duct­ed” when T&T and Bar­ba­dos po­lice of­fi­cers de­tained him in his ho­tel room. He said the man­ner of Thomas’ de­ten­tion was an at­tempt to by­pass the law­ful pro­ce­dure of re­quest­ing his ex­tra­di­tion. Jus­tice Ram­per­sad al­so halt­ed the crim­i­nal case against Thomas.

Last Wednes­day in the Low­er House, AG Ar­mour an­nounced that the State will be ap­peal­ing that as­pect of Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s rul­ing.