Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Re­tired ASP Sheri­don Hill says while the ar­rest of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed the pub­lic’s per­cep­tion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), he feels the of­fi­cers in­volved act­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ly and with no ill will in mind. Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Task Force last Thurs­day and tak­en to the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion, where she was in­ter­viewed as part of a probe in­to how of­fi­cials from the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) re­ceived the ap­proval for the im­por­ta­tion of two high-pow­ered sniper ri­fles, which are con­sid­ered pro­hib­it­ed weapons.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Hill, who was as­signed to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) as their le­gal of­fi­cer from 2016 to 2020, said while he did not want to com­ment on the na­ture of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, dis­agreed with con­cerns sur­round­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest. He said po­lice of­fi­cers had a right to ques­tion and ar­rest a po­lice of­fi­cer of any rank once there were suf­fi­cient grounds to sus­pect a crime was com­mit­ted.

The head in­ves­ti­ga­tor in the case is Suzette Mar­tin, who was pre­vi­ous­ly as­signed to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) and al­so served as a se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent with the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Hill com­mend­ed the of­fi­cers in­volved in Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest, as he felt they demon­strat­ed courage and in­tegri­ty for ful­fill­ing their du­ties even with a se­nior of­fi­cer in­volved.

“The of­fi­cers who have the pro­fes­sion­al­ism to in­ves­ti­gate se­nior of­fi­cers re­gard­less of rank and pros­e­cute them once they have the prop­er pro­to­cols and su­per­vi­sions, they should be com­mend­ed,” Hill said.

“While it re­flects poor­ly on the ser­vice, you have of­fi­cers that have what it takes to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Of course, they should be act­ing on ad­vice be­cause it’s a pub­lic of­fi­cial, but I think those of­fi­cers in­volved should get gold medals in my opin­ion.”

Hill added that ju­nior of­fi­cers, once they re­ceived prop­er guid­ance, were with­in their rights to pur­sue in­ves­ti­ga­tions and even ar­rest se­nior of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, even as ques­tions linger over Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s fate, po­lice of­fi­cers in sev­er­al in­ves­tiga­tive and op­er­a­tional units said they are far from com­fort­ed about the lat­est de­vel­op­ments and what it means for of­fi­cers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, one of­fi­cer as­signed to the Fraud Squad said col­leagues in his unit have been mon­i­tor­ing the lat­est de­vel­op­ments since they un­fold­ed last week and de­scribed morale as be­ing “low,” par­tic­u­lar­ly among ju­nior of­fi­cers from the rank of con­sta­ble to sergeant.

“A lot of peo­ple see it as po­lit­i­cal char­ac­ter as­sas­si­na­tion,” the of­fi­cer said.

“Many of­fi­cers are ques­tion­ing the ba­sis on which she (Hare­wood-Christo­pher) was ar­rest­ed and what this means for them.

“There are al­so a lot of doubts over the mo­tive of the ar­rest and the of­fi­cers in­volved in the ar­rest. There are of­fi­cers who are in­volved in this who feel like they are a law un­to them­selves.”

Mean­while, one of­fi­cer as­signed to the Re­gion II Homi­cide Bu­reau said they too were al­so con­fused over what prompt­ed Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest.

“Every­one on the ground is peev­ed. We’re em­bar­rassed and dis­ap­point­ed, es­pe­cial­ly in the process used by the po­lice of­fi­cers who ar­rest­ed her (Hare­wood-Christo­pher),” the of­fi­cer said.

“I won’t say the morale in the Homi­cide Bu­reau is af­fect­ed, be­cause we still con­tin­ue to do our work, but for the first time the pub­lic is see­ing how lead­ers treat their own, so there is some mis­trust.”

An­oth­er of­fi­cer as­signed to the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force said the prob­lems were par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing for him, as it showed how small the mar­gin for er­ror could be for po­lice of­fi­cers.

The of­fi­cer, who al­so faced dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion in the past, said while of­fi­cers were held to high­er stan­dards of ac­count­abil­i­ty giv­en the pow­ers they pos­sessed, there should be suf­fi­cient mech­a­nisms in place to en­sure there was ad­e­quate grounds to hold of­fi­cers to ac­count for le­git­i­mate rea­sons in­stead of spite and work­place in-fight­ing.

“A lot of po­lice at the lev­el of con­sta­ble to in­spec­tor are fa­mil­iar with the term “bad work” and how ju­nior of­fi­cers can be pun­ished di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly for their ac­tions,” the of­fi­cer said.

“I’ve nev­er seen this kind of un­cer­tain­ty and un­ease in the po­lice ser­vice and many of­fi­cers in crime sup­pres­sion units will have sec­ond thoughts about tak­ing ac­tion as force­ful­ly as need be.”