Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer says the holdup of a ship­ment of 3,000 more body cam­eras from Chi­na for use by po­lice of­fi­cers is be­ing ad­dressed, and “very short­ly you will prob­a­bly hear some­thing more con­crete in re­la­tion to that.”

In the mean­time, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin in­sists of­fi­cers are us­ing the 940 body cam­eras avail­able.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s TTPS me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Ben­jamin as­sured that of­fi­cers are us­ing them.

His as­sur­ance came af­ter Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) di­rec­tor David West last week said in the eight years that po­lice have been us­ing body cam­eras, he has nev­er re­ceived any footage.

Asked whether the lack of footage is linked to of­fi­cers not tak­ing the mat­ter se­ri­ous­ly, Ben­jamin said it was not the case.

“First of all, we have of­fi­cers wear­ing the body cam, so let’s not act like if they’re not wear­ing the body cam. The PCA prob­a­bly might not have re­ceived any (footage) and I’m say­ing that we are go­ing to con­tin­ue to of­fer and en­cour­age the of­fi­cers to use them once we have the body cam and we have enough, it should not be a prob­lem for po­lice of­fi­cers to wear them.”

Last Au­gust, Di­a­mond Sup­plies Lim­it­ed was award­ed a con­tract to im­port 3,000 body 4K cam­eras with ac­ces­sories and sup­port for $24.9 mil­lion. A month lat­er, the com­pa­ny said it had ac­quired the cam­eras but need­ed at least 70 per cent of the con­tract in or­der to pay the month­ly stor­age fees, which were US$220,000. Up to yes­ter­day, the stor­age fees were still not paid.

Asked about this, Ben­jamin said he could not speak much on the is­sue, adding that “very short­ly you will prob­a­bly hear some­thing more con­crete in re­la­tion to that. How­ev­er, that mat­ter is be­ing ad­dressed even as we speak.”

Ben­jamin added that of­fi­cers did not need the cam­eras to show they had in­tegri­ty but wel­comed the batch stuck in Chi­na.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Di­a­mond Sup­plies Ltd and a woman an­swered. Asked to speak with own­er Hashim Mo­hammed, she said she was un­sure if he was avail­able and a few sec­onds lat­er said he was un­avail­able. Asked when he would be avail­able, the woman said Mo­hammed was out of the coun­try.

Calls to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds went unan­swered, while Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land said he could not speak on the mat­ter at the time.

Body cam­eras were in­tro­duced to the TTPS in 2017 as a pi­lot project by then-act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams. Last year, the TTPS said it had 1,120 body cam­eras avail­able for use.