Shane Su­perville 

Act­ing Snr Supt Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s nom­i­nee for Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, has de­clined to com­ment on his po­ten­tial ap­point­ment, say­ing he prefers to wait un­til the par­lia­men­tary process is com­plete.

On Wednes­day, re­ports con­firmed that Gue­var­ro, who has spent most of his polic­ing ca­reer in the Spe­cial Branch, had been iden­ti­fied as the Com­mis­sion’s top choice for the post. The Com­mis­sion sub­mit­ted his name to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo as the pro­posed Com­mis­sion­er, while ACP South-Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar was nom­i­nat­ed to act as Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

Par­lia­ment is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress both ap­point­ments at to­mor­row’s sit­ting in the Low­er House, al­though it re­mains un­clear whether the mat­ter will be de­bat­ed.

Some mem­bers of the po­lice ser­vice have ex­pressed con­cern, point­ing out that while Gue­var­ro is known for his work in the Spe­cial Branch, lit­tle is pub­licly known about his qual­i­fi­ca­tions or ex­pe­ri­ence in lead­ing the TTPS.

In a brief re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp on Wednes­day night, Gue­var­ro wrote:

“At this time I re­spect­ful­ly with­hold fur­ther com­ment un­til the par­lia­men­tary process is com­plet­ed. Thank you for un­der­stand­ing.”

Gue­var­ro pre­vi­ous­ly served on the in­ves­tiga­tive team that ex­am­ined the na­tion­wide black­out in Feb­ru­ary 2022.