Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has or­dered tac­ti­cal wear to on­ly be used by au­tho­rised po­lice of­fi­cers.

The or­der came last month, three months af­ter Guardian Me­dia pub­lished an ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled “Ban­dits in po­lice uni­forms put fear in cit­i­zens” which high­light­ed the ease at which crim­i­nals got their hands on po­lice tac­ti­cal wear.

In the memo, cap­tioned “Ces­sa­tion of the Unau­tho­rised Wear­ing of Op­er­a­tional Wear”, the top cop said she no­ticed that re­cent­ly, sev­er­al of­fi­cers were “wear­ing op­er­a­tional/tac­ti­cal uni­forms in di­vi­sion and in branch­es and sec­tions, which are not au­tho­rised to use.” The Mem­o­ran­dum was dat­ed Jan­u­ary 22 and was ad­dressed to all As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (ACP).

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said that at COMP­STAT meet­ings on De­cem­ber 12 and 19, 2023, and on Jan­u­ary 9, in­struc­tions were giv­en to all ACPs and di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders in charge of units not au­tho­rised to use op­er­a­tional wear to de­sist im­me­di­ate­ly.

“I am re­it­er­at­ing that this in­struc­tion must be en­forced with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. Any of­fi­cers found in breach of these or­ders can be sub­ject­ed to dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion. Kind­ly in­struct of­fi­cers who are not so au­tho­rised to re­port to the po­lice stores to col­lect uni­forms con­sis­tent with Pa­trol Or­der No 3.”

The re­minder came a year and four months af­ter Hare­wood-Christo­pher is­sued an ad­vi­so­ry to her Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (DCP). The memo, dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 5, 2022, was ti­tled “Ad­vi­so­ry on the Use of Op­er­a­tional Wear”. At the time she was act­ing DCP in charge of op­er­a­tions.

The memo said that it came to the at­ten­tion of the ex­ec­u­tive that of­fi­cers work­ing shifts at sta­tions “adopt­ed a prac­tice of out­fit­ting them­selves in op­er­a­tional/tac­ti­cal wear.” She stressed that it must cease im­me­di­ate­ly.

She re­mind­ed that se­nior of­fi­cers are re­quired to con­duct “kit in­spec­tions” for all sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers and for of­fi­cers un­der their charge to su­per­vise and ini­ti­ate kit in­spec­tions.

“This will ad­dress the is­sue of po­lice of­fi­cers au­tho­rised/not au­tho­rised to use op­er­a­tional wear. Those not au­tho­rised are to be in­struct­ed to use the au­tho­rised uni­form ie, Pa­trol Or­der No 2. Be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly, please.”

While Hare­wood-Christo­pher wants her of­fi­cers to ad­here to the rules re­gard­ing the use of tac­ti­cal wear, of­fi­cers told Guardian Me­dia that ac­quir­ing tac­ti­cal wear was as easy as go­ing to the po­lice stores and re­quest­ing it.

Of­fi­cers said that used tac­ti­cal gear must be re­turned be­fore an of­fi­cer is giv­en a new one and when of­fi­cers are trans­ferred out of the au­tho­rised units, but tac­ti­cal uni­forms are not re­turned. Some of­fi­cers out­side of the au­tho­rised units were per­mit­ted by their heads, even though their du­ties are main­ly cler­i­cal, and they are not called up­on to pro­vide sup­port in any op­er­a­tions.

Last year, for­mer head of the T&T Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Snr Supt Anand Rame­sar said the prob­lem of unau­tho­rised po­lice of­fi­cers us­ing tac­ti­cal uni­forms was due to lax rules.

Dur­ing a plan to change the reg­u­lar po­lice uni­forms, po­lice of­fi­cers, in re­volt, be­gan wear­ing the tac­ti­cal kit. He said to ap­pease the of­fi­cers, past lead­ers al­lowed them to wear tac­ti­cal uni­forms. None of the tac­ti­cal uni­forms is dis­tin­guish­able, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to iden­ti­fy whom they be­long to when crim­i­nals are ar­rest­ed.

Rame­sar said un­der his lead­er­ship, it was agreed that po­lice uni­forms were to be out­fit­ted with ra­dio fre­quen­cy iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (RFID). He added that kit in­spec­tions, as was high­light­ed by Hare­wood-Christo­pher in 2022, stopped years ago and it was time to re-in­tro­duce it.

— Jensen La Vende