Re­port­ing by Rishard Khan and Raphael John-Lall

Gary Grif­fith's bid to re­turn as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) and his fate in this sit­u­a­tion re­main in lim­bo as con­tro­ver­sy con­tin­ues to fes­ter over the se­lec­tion process, cul­mi­nat­ing in the res­ig­na­tion of the en­tire Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), calls for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's head and a mo­tion by the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress to im­peach the Pres­i­dent. The mo­tion, how­ev­er, was de­feat­ed by the Elec­toral Col­lege on Thurs­day. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has al­so come un­der fire for the PSC/CoP fi­as­co.

Grif­fith, who was ap­point­ed CoP in 2018 and be­came the first sub­stan­tive CoP since 2012 (af­ter com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs re­signed), is per­haps one of the most po­lar­is­ing pub­lic fig­ures in the coun­try. He has been hailed a hero by his sup­port­ers but has al­so gar­nered the dis­like and dis­trust of many in his three-year tenure.

And al­though polls among cit­i­zens have giv­en him a high pop­u­lar­i­ty rat­ing, one of the most re­cent pub­lic ad­di­tions to the list of those who weren't pleased with Grif­fith as CoP is Dr Row­ley. On Oc­to­ber 16, Dr Row­ley made a bomb­shell rev­e­la­tion–in 2020 he wrote to the then PSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad say­ing he had lost con­fi­dence in Grif­fith as CoP.

Dr Row­ley re­frained from di­vulging any sig­nif­i­cant de­tails at the press con­fer­ence and again at a PNM po­lit­i­cal plat­form ear­li­er this week where he on­ly rea­soned that he lost con­fi­dence in Grif­fith based on "his good judg­ment and un­der­stand­ing."

Row­ley, too, has been tak­en to task by some sec­tions of the pub­lic for his state­ment.

But many are now won­der­ing "What could have led the Prime Min­is­ter to lose con­fi­dence in the com­mis­sion­er?" Was it a sin­gle in­ci­dent or a se­ries of con­cerns?

In the 2018 process to ap­point a CoP, the PSC did not place Grif­fith in the num­ber one po­si­tion. In fact, he was fourth on the mer­it list. PM Row­ley, leader of the PNM Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, in­vest­ed his po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal in choos­ing Grif­fith as the can­di­date for the va­cant post. This, ac­cord­ing to crim­i­nol­o­gist and so­cial re­searcher Dau­rius Figueira, was es­pe­cial­ly so, "giv­en Grif­fith’s his­to­ry of be­ing the pub­lic face (as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter) for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment’s agen­da to dis­man­tle the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus they in­her­it­ed from the PNM, ex­em­pli­fied by the re­jec­tion of the Off­shore Pa­trol Ves­sels."

Figueira said the PNM in op­po­si­tion and in the 2015 elec­toral cam­paign placed great em­pha­sis on the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty fail­ures of the PP gov­ern­ment, but then em­braced Grif­fith plac­ing him in the said na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. To Figueira and large sec­tions of the coun­try, this was a con­tra­dic­tion. The PM was sub­se­quent­ly forced to of­fer pub­lic ex­pla­na­tions jus­ti­fy­ing his ac­tion.

But two years af­ter Grif­fith's ap­point­ment, the PM wrote to the PSC ex­press­ing his loss of con­fi­dence in the CoP. This ac­tion was a blow to his po­lit­i­cal stocks, Figueira be­lieves, as his in­vest­ment of po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal in Grif­fith had clear­ly "back­fired".

"This has to be placed in the con­text of his pub­lic hints af­ter the 2020 elec­tion vic­to­ry that he was now wrap­ping up his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer which opened up the search for a new leader in that event. Then there was the THA elec­tion in Jan­u­ary 2021, its tie and the need for a re­do which sig­nalled weak­ness in the heart­land as the PM in­sist­ed in pub­lic on the im­por­tance po­lit­i­cal­ly of the two To­ba­go seats to PNM con­trol of the State," Figueira added.

Figueira told the Sun­day Guardian Dr Row­ley, how­ev­er, act­ed with­in his re­mit as Prime Min­is­ter to com­mu­ni­cate his con­cerns with the PSC.

"The PM has the pow­er to in­di­cate to the PSC and the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er that he has lost con­fi­dence in the PC as this presents a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty which on­ly the PM is re­spon­si­ble for.

"We will nev­er know the re­al­i­ty that formed the de­ci­sion in 2020 but that is the pre­rog­a­tive of the PM and his alone, that is the re­al­i­ty of the or­der of pow­er un­der our Con­sti­tu­tion."

The two men have clashed pub­licly since the start of the pan­dem­ic and this cul­mi­nat­ed with the PM call­ing Grif­fith to a meet­ing. The clash stemmed from a pri­vate par­ty in west Trinidad. In Sep­tem­ber 2020, the PM called on the po­lice to en­force the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions equal­ly af­ter footage of a pri­vate pool par­ty at Bay­side Tow­ers emerged on so­cial me­dia.

At that time, peo­ple at­tend­ing par­ties along the Cor­ri­dor and oth­er parts of the coun­try were be­ing ar­rest­ed for breach of the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions.

"Per­sons who are par­ty­ing and spread­ing this virus must feel the full brunt of the law in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It’s not for me to tell the com­mis­sion­er who to ar­rest and how to ar­rest, but as Prime Min­is­ter, I could tell the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice that the law must ap­ply to pro­tect us in Trinidad and To­ba­go from those who are not pre­pared to lis­ten," Dr Row­ley then said at a press con­fer­ence.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith fired back short­ly af­ter ex­plain­ing pub­licly that po­lice could not in­ter­vene in mat­ters on pri­vate prop­er­ty be­cause the law did not al­low it.

"He (Row­ley) needs to know his po­si­tion as chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, but he con­tin­ues to make com­ments about polic­ing and he doesn’t have that au­thor­i­ty or knowl­edge be­cause it’s the sec­ond time he has made the er­ror. First, when he said the com­mis­sion­er doesn’t have the au­thor­i­ty to go in­to su­per­mar­kets and banks to try to close them down...then, he came and he did a Michael Jack­son, moon­walked, and cor­rect­ed him­self, he’s do­ing the same thing again," Grif­fith said then.

Fol­low­ing the meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter, Grif­fith held firm in his po­si­tion on the law but apol­o­gised for how he re­spond­ed.

"It was my right to clar­i­fy that mis­con­cep­tion be­cause I am not go­ing to be bul­lied or pushed or pres­sured in­to do­ing any­thing that is il­le­gal," he said.

Many have spec­u­lat­ed that this al­ter­ca­tion catal­ysed the PM's lack of con­fi­dence in Grif­fith.

Gary Griffith

ANISTO ALVES

A clash in per­son­al­i­ties

The spec­u­la­tion isn't with­out mer­it. Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said one of the ma­jor signs of tur­bu­lence be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and CoP was Grif­fith say­ing that the of­fice of the CoP is an in­de­pen­dent one and no one can "sum­mon" him to a meet­ing.

"Gary Grif­fith made it clear that his of­fice is an in­de­pen­dent one. I agree with that. The Prime Min­is­ter him­self said com­plain­ing­ly that he can­not in­struct the po­lice. He tried to sum­mon Grif­fith to a meet­ing to which Grif­fith said was im­prop­er. The ques­tion is what should be the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two of­fices. It is clear that the Con­sti­tu­tion in­tend­ed sep­a­ra­tion of what peo­ple do.”

James be­lieves there was a clash in per­son­al­i­ties. He be­lieves the prob­lems be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and the CoP is not nec­es­sar­i­ly be­cause of the present per­son­al­i­ties and of­fice­hold­ers, but T&T and the rest of the Caribbean have Prime Min­is­ters with "au­to­crat­ic" ten­den­cies.

"Giv­en the au­to­crat­ic na­ture of the prime min­is­te­r­i­al rule, giv­en the brash­ness and fear­less­ness of the pre­vi­ous CoP, it is not un­rea­son­able to spec­u­late that they may have had dif­fer­ences of opin­ion along the way. There may have been some dif­fer­ences on how to po­lice the COVID re­stric­tions as the mat­ter in Bay­side seem to have sug­gest­ed."

Pow­er strug­gle

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, mean­while, felt there was no spe­cif­ic event in the pub­lic do­main that led to the frac­ture in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and the for­mer CoP. How­ev­er, in ret­ro­spect, he said some in­ci­dents could be in­ter­pret­ed that there was a tense­ness in the re­la­tion­ship. The Bay­side in­ci­dent be­ing one of them.

"Clear­ly Grif­fith was say­ing things that sug­gest that he was not toe­ing the line that the Prime Min­is­ter may have want­ed him to toe. Grif­fith had stat­ed that notwith­stand­ing that Petrotrin and AV Drilling had come to some agree­ment, that did not pre­clude him to con­tin­ue his in­ves­ti­ga­tions as to whether AV Drilling had done some­thing. I don’t know that those were some of the is­sues that would have al­lowed the Prime Min­is­ter to lose con­fi­dence. Al­though I can­not specif­i­cal­ly say why," Ra­goonath added.

He be­lieves that the con­tro­ver­sy over the ap­point­ment of a new CoP was a re­sult of a "pow­er strug­gle" be­tween Dr Row­ley and Grif­fith.

"It end­ed up in some peo­ple’s court, it end­ed up in the court of the PSC, it end­ed up in the court of the Pres­i­dent, and all of them be­ing col­lat­er­al dam­age. Be­cause they all got tak­en in­to what was tak­ing place be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and the then CoP. They got caught in the cross­fire," he said.

Ra­goonath too re­it­er­at­ed that Grif­fith was num­ber four on the mer­it list when he was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion of CoP in Au­gust 2018. But he felt it was a good po­lit­i­cal move for the Gov­ern­ment at that time as Grif­fith was pop­u­lar and it gave the pub­lic the im­pres­sion that the Gov­ern­ment had a grip on the crime sit­u­a­tion.

He con­clud­ed that the mael­strom will have neg­a­tive con­se­quences in so­ci­ety.

"For the or­di­nary man on the street, they would like to know where does the se­cu­ri­ty of T&T lies. They want to know if there is strong lead­er­ship in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to ar­rest the crime sit­u­a­tion peo­ple are afraid of. There are al­so eco­nom­ic prob­lems as a re­sult of the clo­sure of busi­ness­es and ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment. Peo­ple are con­cerned about all these things. This does not help the coun­try."

Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns?

Figueira ques­tioned whether cer­tain in­ci­dents, which may not be placed in the pub­lic do­main by the of­fice­hold­ers, may have im­pact­ed to cre­ate the cur­rent PM/CoP im­broglio.

*He said from April to June 2021 events un­fold­ed which in­di­cat­ed the ex­is­tence of transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime (TOC) pipelines mov­ing il­lic­it arms, am­mu­ni­tion and oth­er ma­te­r­i­al from the USA and its ter­ri­to­ries to T&T. This TOC pipeline was ac­tive and large enough to at­tract the at­ten­tion of the US Fed­er­al State, the US De­part­ment of State giv­en the geopo­lit­i­cal in­ter­est of the North At­lantic in T&T. "The arms, am­mu­ni­tion and ma­te­r­i­al ship­ment in­ter­dict­ed at Pi­ar­co, Trinidad, on in­for­ma­tion sup­plied by the US agen­cies in­di­cat­ed the in­tent to out­fit a mili­tia in T&T whose on­ly in­ten­tion was to desta­bilise T&T with an armed in­sur­gency," he added.

*This in­tent was fur­ther re­vealed with the in­ter­dic­tion in June of a cache of arms, am­mu­ni­tion, plas­tique and det­o­na­tors buried out­side the walls of the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison at Arou­ca.

"Did the agen­cies of the US De­part­ment of State brief the PM as to the na­ture of this TOC arms traf­fick­ing pipeline stress­ing the in­volve­ment of peo­ple in pos­ses­sion of FULs and FDLs in this pipeline, stress­ing the need for im­me­di­ate ac­tion with fail­ure to do so hav­ing the TTPS face sanc­tions by the USA?" Figueira ques­tioned.

"In 2013," he said, "the US De­part­ment of State im­posed sanc­tions of the Roy­al St Lu­cia Po­lice Force which were mod­i­fied on­ly in 2021 but not to­tal­ly re­moved."

He said these re­al­i­ties will nev­er be placed in the pub­lic do­main but must be con­sid­ered and fac­tored in­to the events present­ly un­der de­bate in T&T.

The miss­ing mer­it list

The Prime Min­is­ter has come un­der fire for the CoP de­ba­cle af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged he se­cret­ly met with Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes and the then PSC chair­man on Au­gust 12 at Pres­i­dent's House to dis­cuss the mer­it list for the po­si­tion of act­ing CoP. Dr Row­ley has since de­nounced the al­le­ga­tions.

There are spec­u­la­tions that this meet­ing re­sult­ed in the Pres­i­dent not sub­mit­ting the names of the can­di­dates se­lect­ed by the PSC for the CoP post to the Par­lia­ment. The Op­po­si­tion has since asked the Prime Min­is­ter, Pres­i­dent and for­mer PSC chair­man to con­firm who was the pub­lic of­fi­cial at Pres­i­dent's House. This fail­ure was one of the key dri­vers of the Op­po­si­tion's mo­tion to re­move Pres­i­dent Weekes.

Pres­i­dent Weekes re­mained silent on the col­lapse of the PSC, the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the ap­point­ment of a new CoP, and calls to say who was the of­fice-hold­er. But af­ter nu­mer­ous calls from promi­nent at­tor­neys, crim­i­nol­o­gists and po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists for her to ad­dress the pub­lic, as they said she has a moral oblig­a­tion to do, she fi­nal­ly broke her si­lence last Sun­day. How­ev­er, even though Pres­i­dent Weekes did so, she did not ad­dress the ques­tion put to her by the Op­po­si­tion Leader about the vis­it. Ad­dress­ing her fail­ure to sub­mit the mer­it list, she said it reached her of­fice on Au­gust 11. How­ev­er, she said it was re­scind­ed hours lat­er which meant she could not sub­mit the list to Par­lia­ment for con­sid­er­a­tion.

"I as­sure the na­tion that nei­ther the OTP nor I par­tic­i­pat­ed in, al­lowed or en­cour­aged any at­tempt­ed or ac­tu­al im­prop­er in­ter­fer­ence, in­flu­ence or breach of the prin­ci­ple of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers in the op­er­a­tion of the PSC in the mat­ter of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice," a re­lease from the Pres­i­dent said.

Figueira ques­tioned, "Did the mer­it list for the post of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er place Grif­fith at num­ber one in spite of the let­ter the PM sent to the PSC in 2020?"

He said if yes, "then there is no proof of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in an in­de­pen­dent agency un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion."

But he ques­tioned, "What then is this na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ter of grave im­por­tance that mer­it­ed the with­draw­al of the list and the need to ap­point an act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er which was Grif­fith, to then place his ap­point­ment in sta­sis un­til such time there­after the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue was set­tled?"
It was clear, he said, "the PSC was not act­ing lu­cid­ly in ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the grav­i­ty of this is­sue."

Pow­er in the hands of the PM

Figueira ac­knowl­edged that while the process to ap­point a CoP is in­de­pen­dent, the PM still has a con­sid­er­able say.

"It is the ma­jor­i­ty that the PM com­mands in the Par­lia­ment ap­points the PC, not the mass­es. The buck then stops with him. The PM has the pow­er to dis­agree with the man­ner in which a PC is ap­ply­ing the pol­i­cy for the TTPS for­mu­lat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment and to pub­licly dis­agree with pol­i­cy ar­tic­u­lat­ed pub­licly by the PC that is in con­tra­dic­tion with gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy for the TTPS," he told Sun­day Guardian.

James said it was this pow­er Dr Row­ley at­tempt­ed to com­mu­ni­cate to the PSC with his let­ter.

"Why did he do that? The on­ly an­swer I can give is that the Prime Min­is­ter want­ed to in­flu­ence the de­ci­sion-mak­ing by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. He is Prime Min­is­ter and there is an im­pres­sion that he can give...He does not ap­point the mem­bers of the Com­mis­sion.”

He said on­ly when the mer­it list reach­es Par­lia­ment to be de­bat­ed, the Gov­ern­ment can use its ma­jor­i­ty to vote for whomev­er they pre­fer as CoP. Out­side of that, the Gov­ern­ment should not in­ter­fere in the process.

Figueira be­lieves the PSC did its job but con­tributed to the de­ba­cle when it sent Grif­fith on leave over its on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to al­leged cor­rup­tion in the Firearm User's Li­cence process.

"From what is in the pub­lic do­main the PSC did their du­ty by com­plet­ing a mer­it list and sent it off to the Pres­i­dent which they were re­quired to do. We en­tered the mine­field with the with­draw­al the same day of the mer­it list, and the ap­point­ment of Gary Grif­fith as act­ing PC, then send­ing him on leave be­cause of a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue which they chose to in­ves­ti­gate hav­ing no se­cu­ri­ty clear­ance to do so ef­fec­tive­ly and legal­ly," he said.

"The PSC ex­ceed­ed its re­mit when it did so as on a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue they have no lo­cus stan­di, and since they don't hire with­out the com­mand of the per­son who com­mands the ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment, can they fire with­out the com­mand of the per­son who com­mands the ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment?

"The PSC took ac­tion with­out re­al­i­sa­tion of the or­der of pow­er they were deal­ing with that im­pact­ed the post of PC, they treat­ed it as an av­er­age post gov­erned by in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ju­rispru­dence when it is not."

Figueira con­clud­ed that there is a need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, an Of­fi­cial Se­crets Act, and a Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Act.

"But in the grid­lock of the pol­i­tics of race sta­sis, in­er­tia rule," he said.

Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021

The Op­po­si­tion and re­spect­ed pub­lic fig­ures have been call­ing for the head of AG Al-Rawi for the con­vo­lut­ed PSC/CoP mess and said he must be held to ac­count for Le­gal No­tice 183 (2021).

The com­men­ta­tors be­lieve it was a poor­ly draft­ed piece of leg­is­la­tion that ap­peared to com­pro­mise the se­lec­tion process for a com­mis­sion­er of po­lice.

Prof Ramesh De­osaran had said there was a po­lit­i­cal and moral oblig­a­tion for the PM and the AG to ac­count for in­sert­ing the no­tice he la­belled "sus­pi­cious" and "con­fus­ing".

In June, the Gov­ern­ment is­sued Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021 which al­lowed Grif­fith to con­tin­ue in the role as act­ing CoP un­til the se­lec­tion process was com­plet­ed and the CoP could be ap­point­ed.

On Oc­to­ber 14, High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo up­held an in­ter­pre­ta­tion law­suit from so­cial ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj, in which Ma­haraj claimed that the PSC need­ed the ap­proval of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to make act­ing and sub­stan­tive ap­point­ments for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (DCPs). Strik­ing down para­graph 4, the rul­ing ef­fec­tive­ly in­val­i­dat­ed the act­ing ap­point­ment giv­en to Grif­fith. Bal­go­b­in was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC.

Gary's co­nun­drum

*On the day be­fore the PM de­clared he had lost con­fi­dence in Grif­fith, Oc­to­ber 15, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty is­sued a re­lease stat­ing that it had com­plet­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the treat­ment of sus­pects in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt while in cus­tody in Feb­ru­ary.

The PCA found that while in the cus­tody of SORT of­fi­cers, the sus­pects—Joel Bal­con and An­drew Mor­ris—were "the sub­ject of tor­ture," with two of the in­di­vid­u­als be­ing the sub­jects of acts of vi­o­lence that led to their deaths.

It sub­mit­ted its find­ings to the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, then-­act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

*Short­ly af­ter en­ter­ing the CoP's of­fice, Grif­fith launched his brain­child–SORT, the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team. The team’s mem­bers, which in­clud­ed for­mer sol­diers, were hand-picked by the com­mis­sion­er to tack­le elab­o­rate crim­i­nal op­er­a­tions. In April, ASP Mark Her­nan­dez, who head­ed SORT, was charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice as it re­lat­ed to the deaths of Bal­con and Mor­ris. He was then re­moved from his po­si­tion as head of SORT, and re­placed by Supt Roger Alexan­der.

*On Wednes­day night, Chris­t­ian Chan­dler who head­ed a re­vamped le­gal unit un­der Grif­fith at the CoP's of­fice was de­tained with three Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers. The ar­rests arose out of an in­ci­dent aboard Chan­dler’s yacht off the Ch­aguara­mas coast on Au­gust 5.

Chan­dler had pro­ceed­ed on leave on Au­gust 16 pend­ing the out­come of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. On Fri­day he was slapped with five crim­i­nal charges aris­ing out of the in­ci­dent.

PCA com­plaints

*One of the ar­eas that Grif­fith’s tenure as com­mis­sion­er has come un­der in­tense scruti­ny is po­lice-re­lat­ed killings.

While SORT’s suc­cess­es were laud­ed by many, the unit faced se­vere crit­i­cism from some for its al­leged in­volve­ment in sev­er­al fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings.

Dur­ing 2019-2020, there was a surge in po­lice killings. There were 66 fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings and 31 non-fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings–the most record­ed in the pre­vi­ous eight an­nu­al re­ports.

*On June 27, 2020, came, ar­guably, the com­mis­sion­er’s biggest test when three men–Is­rael Clin­ton, Joel Ja­cobs, and Noel Di­a­mond–were al­leged­ly shot by po­lice in Mor­vant. When that footage of the shoot­ing went pub­lic, protests erupt­ed across Port-of-Spain. It ap­peared in the CCTV footage that the men were shot with their hands in the air. The of­fi­cers, at the scene, main­tained they were shot at first.

The claims of ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings sparked wide­spread out­rage–roads and the Beetham High­way were blocked, gun­shots were fired, while pro­test­ers marched through the cap­i­tal city. Then, dur­ing protests in Sea Lots, a preg­nant moth­er, Or­nel­la Greaves was killed. Rel­a­tives claimed she was shot by an of­fi­cer, but po­lice de­nied the claim, say­ing there was no ev­i­dence to prove that the­o­ry.

The protests last­ed for three days. In the end, more than 70 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed.

The PCA called for more than a dozen of­fi­cers in­volved to be sus­pend­ed, but the of­fi­cers were placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive du­ty/leave. The in­ci­dent con­tin­ues to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the PCA.

*DSS–In Sep­tem­ber 2020, SORT of­fi­cers raid­ed the pop­u­lar Drugs Sou-Sou op­er­a­tion in La Hor­quet­ta. Po­lice ini­tial­ly seized $22 mil­lion, but the mon­ey was giv­en back hours lat­er. In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed there were po­lice and de­fence force of­fi­cers in­volved in the al­leged il­le­gal scheme.

Days af­ter the raid, the op­er­a­tion faced pub­lic scruti­ny af­ter videos were leaked al­leged­ly show­ing a mem­ber of the team stuff­ing ev­i­dence, al­leged­ly mon­ey, in­to his bul­let­proof vest. The video placed Grif­fith on the back­foot.

Al­though it was a SORT op­er­a­tion, he in­sist­ed the ac­cused was not a po­lice of­fi­cer, but a de­fence force mem­ber. In Oc­to­ber 2020, po­lice raid­ed the op­er­a­tion again. They seized more than $7 mil­lion in cash, as well as doc­u­ments and elec­tron­ics. Four of­fi­cers were sus­pend­ed, while 11 oth­ers were trans­ferred.

DSS founder Keron Clarke was lat­er charged with two counts of mon­ey laun­der­ing in ear­ly 2021.