Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While he was cau­tious to avoid men­tion­ing the de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or the al­le­ga­tions against sus­pend­ed Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) ASP Gideon Dick­son made it clear that he was not pleased with the ap­proach of in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers.

Dick­son con­tend­ed that such a high­ly pub­li­cised ar­rest and in­ves­ti­ga­tion could do more harm than good, by bring­ing the of­fice of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the TTPS as an in­sti­tu­tion in­to dis­re­pute.

Dick­son spoke on the is­sue dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the as­so­ci­a­tion’s River­side Plaza, Port-of-Spain, of­fice on Wednes­day, where he called on of­fi­cers to con­tin­ue to fol­low through with their du­ties de­spite on­go­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the in­sti­tu­tion.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed last Thurs­day, as en­quiries in­to the ac­tiv­i­ties of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) in­ten­si­fied around the pro­cure­ment of two AX2 sniper ri­fles.

She was re­leased on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon, with­out any charges be­ing laid, how­ev­er, she was sus­pend­ed from du­ty by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC).

Dick­son said the en­tire in­ci­dent has im­pact­ed of­fi­cers.

“So­cial me­dia is abuzz with ac­tiv­i­ties call­ing out per­sons and call­ing out the or­gan­i­sa­tion (the po­lice) in a neg­a­tive light... that is not how we as an or­gan­i­sa­tion ought to be op­er­at­ing es­pe­cial­ly when we are in the heights of an SoE.

“It is a high­ly sen­si­tive mat­ter, the man­age­ment we felt could have been bet­ter. It was not man­aged as how it should have been man­aged.”

He al­so called on the PolSC to make “clear guide­lines and stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures for com­mu­ni­cat­ing and man­ag­ing mat­ters of this na­ture.”

How­ev­er, Dick­son ad­mit­ted that even be­fore Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest, po­lice of­fi­cers have had to deal with low morale be­cause of their salaries, short­age of equip­ment and com­ments in the pub­lic over po­lice non-per­for­mance in crime-fight­ing.

“It has had an im­pact both on the sec­ond di­vi­sion and on the first di­vi­sion, but as one as­so­ci­a­tion, our clar­i­on call to all po­lice of­fi­cers is they have tak­en an oath to pro­tect and serve.

“Don’t let it have you daunt­ed.

“Our job is nec­es­sary and we need to un­der­stand we are not a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, one of­fi­cer in the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force said of­fi­cers in his unit and oth­er op­er­a­tional arms were gen­er­al­ly “mis­trust­ful” of of­fi­cers who served in the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, as they felt that many of­fi­cers were ma­li­cious­ly ar­rest­ed.

“They (PSB) aren’t seen in a very good light by a lot of of­fi­cers who work in crime-fight­ing.”

DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin, who led the team of of­fi­cers who ar­rest­ed Hare­wood-Christo­pher, pre­vi­ous­ly served as the Snr Supt of the PSB.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on whether he was con­cerned that there may be re­sent­ment or mis­trust among of­fi­cers to­wards Mar­tin for her pre­vi­ous role, vice pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion ASP Ish­mael Pitt, urged of­fi­cers to show “ma­tu­ri­ty” by re­mem­ber­ing their du­ties.

“There are a lot of of­fi­cers who may not find favour in the PSB, their job is to in­ves­ti­gate rogue of­fi­cers and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly units of that na­ture aren’t cel­e­brat­ed in any po­lice or­gan­i­sa­tion, but we un­der­stand the im­por­tance of that unit as an as­so­ci­a­tion and a re­spon­si­ble as­so­ci­a­tion at that and we would not sin­gle out or de­monise any in­di­vid­ual on their ap­point­ment.

“We urge of­fi­cers to ex­er­cise that same lev­el of ma­tu­ri­ty for per­sons who have served in the PSB and who have that task of car­ry­ing out du­ties.”

Dick­son said since the de­vel­op­ments un­fold­ed last Thurs­day, he has been in con­tact with Hare­wood-Christo­pher, DCPs Suzette Mar­tin and Natasha George in an at­tempt to hear all sides of the sto­ry.