Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Col­lis Hazel and Se­nior Supt Rod­hill Kirk have been re­moved from their posts at the helm of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s To­ba­go Di­vi­sion.

But while Hazel could not con­firm the news yes­ter­day, Kirk did, say­ing he had giv­en crime-fight­ing ef­forts on the is­land his best try.

In a phone in­ter­view, Kirk thanked To­bag­o­ni­ans for their sup­port.

He lament­ed, “To­ba­go is a unique di­vi­sion, mean­ing that to op­er­ate in the To­ba­go space, you have to have a lev­el of the To­ba­go cul­ture.”

Kirk said he ac­cept­ed the de­ci­sion made by the TTPS ad­min­is­tra­tion and was con­tent­ed that he’d done his best for To­ba­go.

“It’s a small di­vi­sion, but a lot of peo­ple feel it doesn’t have its chal­lenges…To­ba­go is a chal­leng­ing di­vi­sion be­cause of mul­ti­ple fac­tors I be­lieve, giv­en the re­sources that I need, I would have been able to cre­ate some sort of change.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Kirk will be trans­ferred to the South­ern Di­vi­sion.

The re­as­sign­ments will hap­pen in two weeks and by Oc­to­ber, To­ba­go’s polic­ing di­vi­sion will be un­der new man­age­ment.

This de­ci­sion fol­lows a trag­ic mile­stone in which To­ba­go’s mur­der toll reached a record 22 af­ter an­oth­er man was shot dead in Par­latu­vi­er on Mon­day.

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, Hazel, who was ap­point­ed ACP to To­ba­go in May 2023, said he’d heard ru­mours of the changes but couldn’t con­firm them.

He said, “So, I haven’t got­ten any ... that has been band­ing about and un­til I get some­thing from my boss­es of­fi­cial on that, then I would be able to speak on that,” Hazel said.

When asked about the changes yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land was mum on the is­sue.

“I can’t, nei­ther can I con­firm nor de­ny … I nei­ther con­firm nor de­ny,” he said.

But Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the re­as­sign­ment fol­lows a de­ci­sion made by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in Ju­ly to com­bat com­pla­cen­cy and con­tempt bred by fa­mil­iar­i­ty, adding it will be vi­tal in To­ba­go’s con­tin­ued fight against crime.

“When the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil met in To­ba­go on Ju­ly 9, a de­ci­sion was tak­en to be­gin mov­ing around mem­bers of the TTPS in or­der to re­move the curse of com­pla­cen­cy and in To­ba­go’s case specif­i­cal­ly, to erad­i­cate the con­tempt bred by fa­mil­iar­i­ty. This is just that de­ci­sion ma­te­ri­al­is­ing af­ter two months,” Au­gus­tine said.

“I want to ex­press grat­i­tude to Mr Hazel and Mr Kirk for their tire­less ef­forts in the fight against crime in To­ba­go. I wish them suc­cess in their fu­ture en­deav­ours.

“Hazel’s new post­ing as head of the TTPS’ tac­ti­cal unit will place him as head of IATF and GEB and that means he will have an even more cru­cial role to play in To­ba­go’s war against crime.”

Mean­while, To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber chair­man Mar­tin George said the de­ci­sion to bring new lead­er­ship to To­ba­go sig­nals the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is se­ri­ous about get­ting im­me­di­ate re­sults.

He wel­comed the move, not­ing To­ba­go po­lice have been strug­gling to make a dent in the crime sit­u­a­tion.

“We ful­ly sup­port the com­mis­sion­er and en­dorse any such move to make a change, shake up things in To­ba­go to en­sure that maybe you bring per­sons who are not so close­ly con­nect­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty, per­sons who are not from To­ba­go, to take charge, to take lead­er­ship and maybe they might bring fresh ideas, fresh per­spec­tives and we may see some dras­tic im­prove­ment in polic­ing ef­forts and to re­duce crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.”

He said it is mad­ness to ex­pect dif­fer­ent out­comes by do­ing the same thing.

“When the Com­mis­sion­er takes a de­ci­sion such as this, it sig­nals some­thing to the pop­u­la­tion that she wants to see some sort of change. Maybe she wants to see an im­prove­ment. Maybe she thinks that there are oth­er per­sons who are bet­ter suit­ed to lead the TTPS ef­forts in To­ba­go, and she’s go­ing to de­ploy those per­sons to take charge.”

For­mer ACPs agree move nec­es­sary

For­mer ACP To­ba­go Jef­frey George yes­ter­day said the change in the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion was in­evitable, giv­en that the cur­rent hi­er­ar­chy was not get­ting re­sults.

“If they were try­ing and they couldn’t cre­ate a dent, they need to bring in an­oth­er team who may be able to cre­ate a dent and peg the num­bers be­fore we get a larg­er num­ber. So, bring­ing in some­one with a change of strat­e­gy that may have the ex­pe­ri­ence to curb the emerg­ing gang sit­u­a­tion.”

How­ev­er, he lament­ed that even dur­ing his time as AC, the lack of prop­er re­sources hin­dered their op­er­a­tional plan­ning.

“The prob­lems in To­ba­go are that they don’t have enough strength and the po­lice of­fi­cers in To­ba­go lack the nec­es­sary train­ing to deal with the present sit­u­a­tion. That would be the cause of what’s hap­pen­ing. Al­so, the di­vi­sion lacks the re­sources, ve­hi­cles, man­pow­er, train­ing. Enough at­ten­tion is not be­ing paid to To­ba­go by the TTPS ad­min­is­tra­tion. To­ba­go has al­ways been left on its own and be fight­ing to get stuff.”

One oth­er ACP who didn’t want to be named said the changes had to be made but was sur­prised Kirk was be­ing moved.

“I have been lis­ten­ing to the of­fer­ing, not of Mr Kirk, but of Mr Hazel and I’m not im­pressed. I’m not say­ing I’m im­pressed with what’s hap­pen­ing in Trinidad, be­cause as se­niors they are usu­al­ly mak­ing com­ments as if it’s script­ed. It’s gener­ic. I think I would have opt­ed for a change for the ACP not the se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent in To­ba­go.”