The fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo in St Au­gus­tine last week, cap­tured on CCTV show­ing him with his hands raised mo­ments be­fore he was killed, has placed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) un­der in­tense pub­lic scruti­ny.

The in­ci­dent, which has left Sama­roo’s com­mon-law wife, Ka­ia Sealy, paral­ysed, has al­so sparked a des­per­ate out­cry for ac­count­abil­i­ty.

For years, the promise of body cam­eras for po­lice of­fi­cers has been dan­gled be­fore the pub­lic like a car­rot of trans­paren­cy, yet we re­main trapped in a state of “he-said, she-said” jus­tice that sat­is­fies and pro­tects no one.

More­over, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro now finds him­self at the cen­tre of a firestorm, fol­low­ing his de­ci­sion not to sus­pend the of­fi­cers in­volved in last week’s in­ci­dent.

While we ac­cept the com­mis­sion­er’s po­si­tion that “due process must be al­lowed to take its course,” in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice in polic­ing recog­nis­es that pub­lic con­fi­dence is strength­ened when of­fi­cers in­volved in fa­tal in­ci­dents are tem­porar­i­ly re­moved from ac­tive du­ty to pre­vent any per­cep­tion of in­flu­ence over on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

This does not pre­sume guilt, but rather safe­guards the in­tegri­ty of the process. It al­so re­as­sures the pub­lic that en­quiries are be­ing con­duct­ed fair­ly and in­de­pen­dent­ly and al­lows of­fi­cers to con­tin­ue earn­ing their salaries pend­ing the out­come of the probe.

Fur­ther­more, had these of­fi­cers been equipped with op­er­a­tional cam­eras, the “shad­ow of doubt” that cur­rent­ly hangs over this in­ci­dent would have al­ready been re­placed by ir­refutable ev­i­dence.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is among those who have pub­licly ques­tioned why ex­ist­ing body cam­eras, pro­cured in good faith, are not cur­rent­ly be­ing used, while re­mind­ing the pub­lic that these de­vices pro­tect both cit­i­zens and of­fi­cers alike.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty has echoed this po­si­tion, not­ing that in­ci­dents like Sama­roo’s death “un­der­score the im­por­tance of the use of body-worn cam­eras … to en­hance ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and pub­lic con­fi­dence in polic­ing.”

Most no­tably, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has en­dorsed the use of body cam­eras by of­fi­cers in the field, stat­ing that such mea­sures would “in­crease con­fi­dence in the TTPS.”

This af­fir­ma­tion from the na­tion’s gov­ern­men­tal leader un­der­scores that this is not mere­ly an op­er­a­tional tool, but a na­tion­al im­per­a­tive for trust.

Let’s be clear - we cast no as­per­sions on any in­di­vid­ual or in­sti­tu­tion, but a fair and hon­est in­ves­ti­ga­tion de­mands ev­i­dence, and body cam­eras pro­vide ex­act­ly that.

It is al­so worth re­mem­ber­ing that un­re­solved ques­tions about ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings car­ry re­al con­se­quences.

In the past, crit­i­cisms from in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, have high­light­ed con­cerns about polic­ing prac­tices, is­sues that strain both diplo­mat­ic trust and do­mes­tic con­fi­dence.

Had body cam­eras been op­er­a­tional and con­sis­tent­ly used, this lat­est tragedy might have been re­solved more swift­ly and with far less doubt.

Tax­pay­ers have al­ready seen mil­lions of dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed to this es­sen­tial tool, in­clud­ing a $24.9 mil­lion con­tract for 3,000 body cam­eras that was can­celled to save costs, and a new $20 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion in the 2026 na­tion­al bud­get to pro­cure 3,120 ad­di­tion­al cam­eras for front­line of­fi­cers.

It is un­ac­cept­able that so much has been spent on tech­nol­o­gy that re­mains un­der­utilised or in­ac­tive.

The TTPS, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Gov­ern­ment and rel­e­vant over­sight bod­ies, must pri­ori­tise the rapid ac­qui­si­tion, de­ploy­ment and manda­to­ry use of body cam­eras as a fun­da­men­tal part of law en­force­ment.