Now that the dust has set­tled on the grounds of the Po­lice Acad­e­my af­ter Sat­ur­day’s T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Sports Day, we trust that Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has tak­en the time to re­flect on her self-flat­ter­ing “ex­cel­lent” per­for­mance rat­ing.

CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher is due to ap­pear be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment to­day, where we hope she’ll ex­plain the cri­te­ria by which she ap­praised her­self when ap­proached by the me­dia Sat­ur­day and asked to rate her 100-day per­for­mance.

CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s re­sponse was al­so to ques­tion why the jour­nal­ist “had the time to count” her length of days in of­fice, while she was “work­ing hard” at her job.

Sure­ly, through her many years of ser­vice, the Com­mis­sion­er must know that every move she makes will be care­ful­ly scru­ti­nised.

If, in fact, the rat­ing of “ex­cel­lent” was borne of a be­lief that she has al­ready dri­ven bet­ter poli­cies and per­for­mances with­in the cor­ri­dors of the Po­lice Ser­vice, then the CoP is bad­ly mis­tak­en to be­lieve the pub­lic per­ceives her in the man­ner she sees her­self.

The re­al­i­ty is a long dis­tance off.

Com­ing in­to of­fice, CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher knew the de­mands placed on her to bring about tan­gi­ble and vis­i­ble change af­ter a dis­as­trous 2022 with the high­est num­ber of mur­ders on record.

When Par­lia­ment ap­proved her ap­point­ment on Feb­ru­ary 3, the mur­der count was 65.

Two and a half weeks lat­er, as she an­nounced on Feb­ru­ary 27 that with­in three months there would be a turn­around in se­ri­ous crime, the count had risen to 101.

To­day, just 10 days away from the three-month mark, the killings have climbed to 229, a 127 per cent in­crease.

The pub­lic’s per­cep­tion of her tenure to­day is, there­fore, any­thing but good at present, and the Com­mis­sion­er must ap­pre­ci­ate there is lit­tle pa­tience for long-term promis­es.

The coun­try wants swift ac­tion and un­der her 100-day tenure, we’ve gone fur­ther away from a res­o­lu­tion.

The types of dou­ble and triple killings we be­gan to see in the lat­ter half of 2022 have risen and have on­ly di­min­ished the con­fi­dence cit­i­zens have in the Po­lice Ser­vice un­der her watch.

Noth­ing in Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s pe­ri­od in charge so far has in­di­cat­ed we are safer to­day than we were be­fore she took of­fice.

The ex­cel­lence and “hard work” she speaks of are not re­flect­ed in the tor­ment res­i­dents now face al­most dai­ly through an in­creas­ing num­ber of home in­va­sions.

Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher must con­sid­er giv­ing care­ful thought to her words, cog­nisant of the dam­age it caus­es while try­ing to gar­ner more sup­port from the pub­lic in the fight against crime.

While she might not be fid­dling while Rome burns, the ash­es have un­doubt­ed­ly been ris­ing high­er un­der her watch.