Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is pleased that the head of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, as she lament­ed that for months, cor­rup­tion was al­lowed to fes­ter at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion.

On Tues­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave as part of the probe in­to the mur­der of act­ing cor­po­ral Anusha Ever­s­ley and the theft of guns and am­mu­ni­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion on Sun­day.

How­ev­er, it has been con­firmed that it was done as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure and not a find­ing of mis­con­duct or li­a­bil­i­ty on his part.

De­spite that, speak­ing with re­porters yes­ter­day at South Park, the Prime Min­is­ter said that for too long mis­con­duct at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion went un­de­tect­ed.

“They have re­moved the head of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Mr Sagaram­s­ingh, I think he was, be­cause that has not been hap­pen­ing to­day. We dis­cov­ered it on that day. I think one of the of­fi­cers in an in­ter­view talked about over eight months, about eight months that has been go­ing on. So there has not been prop­er su­per­vi­sion of what is hap­pen­ing in the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “I think the TTPS and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice are do­ing a fan­tas­tic job. They work very quick­ly.”

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is apol­o­gis­ing to the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA), if her na­tion­al state­ment last Sun­day, is­sued af­ter the fe­male of­fi­cer’s mur­der, caused any of­fence.

EPA pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son said the Prime Min­is­ter’s at­tempt to dis­tin­guish be­tween a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) of­fi­cer and a Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS) of­fi­cer cre­at­ed the im­pres­sion that she was seek­ing to di­min­ish the role and val­ue of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice.

Speak­ing dur­ing a Face­book live dis­cus­sion with the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), Richard­son posit­ed, “I am ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the re­sponse by the Prime Min­is­ter to what it is hap­pen­ing. That is a frontal at­tack on law en­force­ment, be­cause sim­ply put, the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice are law en­force­ment.”

He added, “We are in a state of emer­gency, and these per­sons are al­leged to have de­cid­ed that they can do this kind of crime. What is the re­sponse we got? Well, it is not re­al­ly the TTPS; it is the TTMPS. All of that is wa­ter un­der the bridge, be­cause we have about 60 firearms and about 4,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion out­side there.”

On Sun­day evening, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the in­ci­dent at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion was not an ex­ter­nal at­tack on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces, but an in­ter­nal breach with­in the TTMPS.

She em­pha­sised that the TTPS is sep­a­rate from the TTMPS and its of­fi­cers were not in­volved. She added the TTPS and the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty will sup­port the TTMPS and the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ef­forts to re­cov­er stolen items.

Richard­son coun­tered, say­ing mu­nic­i­pal po­lice have the same ex­pec­ta­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as TTPS of­fi­cers.

“And if we have a lead­er­ship that is say­ing to us that, okay, it is all right for that to hap­pen be­cause it didn’t hap­pen, that is, of course, di­min­ish­ing the val­ue of the work that the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice do. And it does not give the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, or even the state po­lice, the full con­fi­dence that the state po­lice val­ues your work, and the politi­cians does not val­ue your work that you do to pro­tect who­ev­er, what­ev­er, wher­ev­er you are.”

The TTPS is a na­tion­al body with coun­try­wide ju­ris­dic­tion over ma­jor crimes, while the TTMPS op­er­ates with­in mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries. Both have pow­ers of ar­rest and sim­i­lar train­ing, but serve dif­fer­ent roles. The TTPS han­dles na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and se­ri­ous of­fences, while the TTMPS fo­cus­es on com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and en­forc­ing lo­cal by-laws.

Guardian Me­dia told Per­sad-Bisses­sar about Richard­son’s con­cern, and she said, “First of all, it was not my in­ten­tion to in­sult any­one. Com­ing through the so­cial me­dia and oth­er­wise, there was a sort of a dis­con­nect be­tween the mu­nic­i­pal and the TTPS. So that was just to clar­i­fy that. But every­thing else I said in the state­ment, I stand by those words. And I’m sor­ry if he’s of­fend­ed. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we can’t please every­body every sin­gle day of my life.”

De­fends Govt’s per­for­mance on crime

And de­spite 111 record­ed homi­cides so far this year, in the midst of a State of Emer­gency, the Prime Min­is­ter is de­fends her Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance to re­duce crime.

How­ev­er, she ac­knowl­edged that there is more work to be done.

“We have some achieve­ments, as I say, much more to do. Mur­ders down by 42 per cent. Se­ri­ous crimes down by 30 per cent. Crimes down from 600 to what­ev­er it was at the end of last year. And again, this year, so far, from last year to now, that too is down. So, I am very hap­py about that.”

But the Prime Min­is­ter added, “I’m not over­joyed be­cause I think there’s still much more to do.”

She said her Gov­ern­ment will need more time to turn things around.

“It’s 120 months of ne­glect that we have to cor­rect. We’ve just had 12 months.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar pledged to talk more about her an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives on Sat­ur­day for her par­ty’s one-year in gov­ern­ment cel­e­bra­tions.

One of the things she said her gov­ern­ment is work­ing on is re­form­ing firearms leg­is­la­tion.

“We are ac­tive­ly work­ing on that to­geth­er with the Law Re­form Com­mis­sion. I’ve asked for re­search to be done on what’s hap­pen­ing in oth­er Com­mon­wealth ju­ris­dic­tions so that we can get our mod­els to fol­low. Yes, we will re­form it.”