SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The re­cent shake-up in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is draw­ing mixed re­ac­tions, with some po­lice of­fi­cers, as well as a south­ern busi­ness cham­ber and a crim­i­nol­o­gist ques­tion­ing the de­ci­sion. Oth­ers, though, say the changes are com­plete­ly nor­mal.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figuera sug­gest­ed that pol­i­tics may be at play. He not­ed that the changes came just days af­ter Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der told se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers at a pass­ing-out cer­e­mo­ny to sup­port Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, adding they should not “feel hurt they did not get the job”. The min­is­ter said his com­ments were not in­tend­ed to at­tack any­one.

Figuera said, “To speak of that at a pass­ing out pa­rade, that is po­lit­i­cal over­reach, es­pe­cial­ly at a pass­ing out pa­rade in pub­lic.”

He ar­gued the mes­sage de­liv­ered through me­dia re­ports was that the com­mis­sion­er had the sup­port of the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate, and dis­senters were told to “get on board or leave”. Then, he said, news broke that As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar, head of South/ Cen­tral and South West­ern Di­vi­sions, was sent on 16 months of ac­crued va­ca­tion leave.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin, Suzette Mar­tin, and Natasha George were al­so re­as­signed: Ben­jamin from Op­er­a­tions to Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Mar­tin from In­tel­li­gence to Op­er­a­tions, and George from Ad­min­is­tra­tion to In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions.

De­scrib­ing Mys­tar as a trust­ed and ex­pe­ri­enced of­fi­cer, Figuera re­called that his name was sub­mit­ted by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion for Deputy Com­mis­sion­er, but claimed “the politi­cians did not agree with that”, and now he has been sent on ex­ten­sive leave.

He ac­cused the au­thor­i­ties of “play­ing games with the TTPS” at a time when the coun­try is un­der a State of Emer­gency and caught in re­gion­al ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States.

“I don’t know what it is in aid of, but at this time to be desta­bil­is­ing the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus be­cause al­ready it start­ed with the SSA, then the mil­i­tary, and now TTPS. At this present time in the life of the na­tion, giv­en the in­sta­bil­i­ty sur­round­ing us, you have to ask your­self what is the log­ic be­hind these moves.”

Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh al­so weighed in, say­ing the de­vel­op­ments come at a sen­si­tive point in the na­tion’s se­cu­ri­ty land­scape. He ar­gued the pub­lic de­serves a clear ex­pla­na­tion.

“Crime is al­ready strain­ing the law en­force­ment strate­gies, and while we recog­nise that ro­tat­ing se­nior of­fi­cers can broad­en their ex­pe­ri­ence, the abrupt na­ture of these changes and the de­ci­sion to send ACP Mys­tar on ex­tend­ed leave raise un­der­stand­able con­cerns. In the mid­dle of this crime wave, sta­bil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and trust in lead­er­ship are es­sen­tial. If these changes are tru­ly strate­gic, the pub­lic and of­fi­cers alike de­serve a clear ex­pla­na­tion so that con­fi­dence in the TTPS is not fur­ther erod­ed.”

Mean­while, Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion head ASP Gideon Dick­son in­sist­ed change is con­stant in the TTPS. He said the move should be giv­en a fair chance. He ex­plained that se­nior of­fi­cers like Mys­tar and even he had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed sig­nif­i­cant leave, and prop­er man­age­ment re­quired it to be tak­en.

Sev­er­al of­fi­cers who were un­der Mys­tar’s com­mand spoke anony­mous­ly, ex­press­ing shock that he was sent on leave, while oth­ers dis­missed the move as “nor­mal”. How­ev­er, a se­nior of­fi­cer coun­tered: “It is not a norm to or­der se­niors on leave; they are usu­al­ly served first and re­quest­ed they ap­ply to re­duce such leave.”

He said that giv­en the cur­rent cli­mate of in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal threats, cou­pled with an SOE, the de­ci­sion to or­der Mys­tar—“the most ex­pe­ri­enced, ac­tive, knowl­edge­able and com­pe­tent of his rank”—on leave did not ap­pear to be in the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s best in­ter­est. Mys­tar, he added, would be “great­ly missed by all his sub­or­di­nates, with­out a doubt”.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic on High Street, San Fer­nan­do, al­so voiced con­fu­sion over the de­ci­sion. Lau­rel Basi­den called it “very strange” be­cause Mys­tar, she said, was “do­ing his job”.