Since her an­nounce­ment on Jan­u­ary 31 of the ar­rest and de­ten­tion of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, the coun­try has been wait­ing with bat­ed breath to re­ceive a sta­tus re­port from the se­nior in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Suzette Mar­tin, on this most dis­turb­ing na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

The em­bar­rass­ing­ly spec­tac­u­lar down­fall of the CoP has been a bit­ter pill for the en­tire coun­try to swal­low, con­sid­er­ing that overnight, our per­cep­tion of the top cop as an in­fal­li­ble and spot­less “chief law en­forcer” in­stant­ly be­came tar­nished, as she was now be­ing pre­sent­ed to cit­i­zens as the “chief law­break­er” amid an on­go­ing sniper weapons probe.

Iron­i­cal­ly, how­ev­er, 12 days in­to the month of Feb­ru­ary, there has been nary a word from Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Mar­tin, who is in charge of In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, while the rep­u­ta­tion of her sub­stan­tive boss, who is now on sus­pen­sion by or­der of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) pend­ing the out­come of the po­lice probe, con­tin­ues to take a pub­lic beat­ing.

Even more trou­bling is the fact that Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard is still with­out any cred­i­ble ev­i­dence to charge the head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) with any crime.

In­stead, we are now faced with what seems to be two TTPSs at play—one led by the de­ter­mined and de­fi­ant DCP Mar­tin, who con­tin­ues to search high and low for ev­i­dence against Hare­wood-Christo­pher, while the oth­er branch of the TTPS, led by the new act­ing com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin, obliv­i­ous­ly sings the top cop’s prais­es.

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter tak­ing the TTPS reins last week, act­ing CoP Ben­jamin made a point of say­ing to re­porters that he had been in touch with Hare­wood-Christo­pher, as the two wished each oth­er well with their re­spec­tive bat­tles ahead.

That was cer­tain­ly ac­cept­able and mag­nan­i­mous on both their parts.

How­ev­er, Mr Ben­jamin re­turned to the podi­um this week at his first of­fi­cial news con­fer­ence on Mon­day to not on­ly thank Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher for her “con­sci­en­tious and com­mit­ted ser­vice” to the TTPS, but to glow­ing­ly de­scribe her as “a men­tor, a mod­el, and a mul­ti­pli­er with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

Un­doubt­ed­ly, Mr Ben­jamin is speak­ing his truth from the heart.

But with the DCP Mar­tin up­date still pend­ing and the act­ing com­mis­sion­er al­so mum on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we are left to ask the good­ly Mr Ben­jamin, ‘who would the TTPS un­der your watch have us be­lieve that Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­al­ly is?’ A vil­lain or a saint?

But the TTPS re­al­ly can­not have it both ways.

The Po­lice Ser­vice un­der Mr Ben­jamin’s com­mand ur­gent­ly needs to speak with one voice to the pub­lic on this del­i­cate and liti­gious pub­lic in­ter­est mat­ter, and to draw a line in the prover­bial sand for the sake of its own cred­i­bil­i­ty in this en­tire sor­did af­fair.

Our ad­vice to the act­ing top cop is to put his loy­al­ty and grat­i­tude to Hare­wood-Christo­pher aside, and let pro­fes­sion­al­ism be the or­der of the day.

As the per­son now in charge of the po­lice ser­vice, while it in­ves­ti­gates Hare­wood-Christo­pher for a pos­si­ble breach of law, his word will be mea­sured up against the prin­ci­ples of jus­tice, fair­ness, and trans­paren­cy.

His para­mount du­ty now is to the peo­ple of this na­tion and the in­tegri­ty of the TTPS.