Amid the on­go­ing pub­lic im­broglio that in­volves this coun­try’s Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, we con­tin­ue to hold fast to the prin­ci­ple that no one is above the law and that jus­tice must not on­ly be done but seen to be done, even when the per­son be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed is our top cop.

With that said, one would have thought that greater care would have been tak­en by the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers in such a high-pro­file probe in­volv­ing such a se­nior of­fice hold­er to en­sure that all the prover­bial ‘I’s were dot­ted and the ‘T’s crossed be­fore this mat­ter was al­lowed to blow wide open in the pub­lic do­main. The fact that up to late yes­ter­day, noth­ing they pre­sent­ed to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard had been able to stick, turns the spot­light right back on the in­ves­ti­ga­tors them­selves.

As a coun­try, we have wit­nessed first-hand the ar­rest and de­ten­tion of our po­lice com­mis­sion­er, on­ly to see her re­leased 48 hours lat­er while se­nior mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­tin­ue to search high and low for cred­i­ble ev­i­dence against their leader for an al­leged crime they had years to in­ves­ti­gate, on­ly to be told that what they have found so far does not hold wa­ter.

As the sit­u­a­tion now stands, the en­tire coun­try is feel­ing the weight of this em­bar­rass­ing fi­as­co, while these in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers—led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin—have put their own com­pe­ten­cies and pro­fes­sion­al­ism in deal­ing with high-pro­file mat­ters up for pub­lic scruti­ny. Need­less to say, un­til they can pro­duce the smok­ing gun that led us to where we are to­day, their own per­for­mance has been weighed in the Court of Pub­lic Opin­ion, and they have all been found se­ri­ous­ly want­i­ng. It goes with­out say­ing that when it comes to very se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ing their top-ranked boss, there sim­ply is no room for such cost­ly blun­ders.

Con­sid­er­ing that this pub­lic spec­ta­cle comes on the heels of what was a record year of mur­ders and may­hem in 2024 with a low in­ves­ti­ga­tion rate, we are le­git­i­mate­ly con­cerned about the abil­i­ty of those at the helm of the TTPS to bring the run­away homi­cide sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol. As with all crim­i­nal mat­ters, those who al­lege must prove, and there­fore the ul­ti­mate fate of our Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice must be based on hard ev­i­dence—not con­jec­ture. We note the con­cerns of Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tor­ney, Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der, that a ju­nior of­fi­cer who was charged with in­ter­ro­gat­ing the com­mis­sion­er claimed that he had the ev­i­dence to prove that she broke the law. Clear­ly, what­ev­er that was has not moved the DPP.

Amid all that, the de­ci­sion by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) to have Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­placed by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin is be­ing chal­lenged on the grounds that the PolSC act­ed pre­ma­ture­ly in the ab­sence of ev­i­dence. Re­gard­less of who­ev­er the even­tu­al win­ners of the pend­ing le­gal bat­tle may be, there is al­ready enough to sug­gest that the peo­ple of T&T are des­tined to be the ul­ti­mate losers.

We there­fore hope that as a coun­try we will learn from this sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and that this fi­as­co will not be al­lowed to re­peat it­self. For starters, the ar­rest and de­ten­tion of such a high-rank­ing of­fi­cial must nev­er again oc­cur in the ab­sence of cred­i­ble ev­i­dence.