Derek Achong and Rhon­dor Dowlat

Less than a week af­ter five po­lice of­fi­cers were freed of ex­tor­tion charges due to in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence, two of their col­leagues in­volved in the same mat­ter have met the same fate.

This fol­lows the re­lease of sev­en East­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers on cor­rup­tion charges on No­vem­ber 18. With yes­ter­day’s case, the to­tal num­ber of of­fi­cers freed on crim­i­nal charges in the past week has risen to 14.

PCs Keiran Morang and Nicholas Raghoo­bar were dis­charged by High Court Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va yes­ter­day as she made a sim­i­lar rul­ing to the one in re­la­tion to their col­leagues dur­ing a hear­ing yes­ter­day.

The duo and their col­leagues Keenan Williams, Evans Mitchell, Kevin Gomez, Lat­i­fa Leza­ma, and Jabari Mc In­tyre were charged with ex­tor­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice in re­la­tion to an al­leged in­ci­dent with an Arou­ca cou­ple last year.

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly found cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, mar­i­jua­na, and am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a search of the cou­ple’s home at Five Rivers, Arou­ca, and al­leged­ly so­licit­ed a $30,000 bribe and a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na to not pros­e­cute them. Pros­e­cu­tor Sher­von Nor­ie­ga rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) at the hear­ing.

Last Wednes­day, Mas­ter De Sil­va freed all ex­cept Morang and Raghoo­bar based on an ap­pli­ca­tion from their lawyer Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan over the in­suf­fi­cien­cy of the ev­i­dence against them.

In her de­ci­sion, Mas­ter De Sil­va al­so cit­ed pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­steps and re­peat­ed non-com­pli­ance with her pre­vi­ous court or­ders. She re­served her de­ci­sion in re­la­tion to Morang and Raghoo­bar, who were rep­re­sent­ed by Dar­ren Mitchell, be­fore mak­ing a sim­i­lar rul­ing yes­ter­day.

Mas­ter De Sil­va’s ini­tial rul­ing in the Arou­ca case came two days af­ter she freed sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers fac­ing a sep­a­rate ex­tor­tion case. In April of last year, In­sp Deyal Ram­lakhan, act­ing Cpl Sa­heed Khan, PCs Cleon Smith, Da­vanan Rag­bir, Macai Joseph, Ja­son O’Souna, and Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) Ray­on Charles were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice.

The charges came af­ter a video, al­leged­ly de­pict­ing the of­fi­cers re­mov­ing a large quan­ti­ty of cash from a San­gre Grande busi­ness dur­ing a raid, went vi­ral. The sev­en of­fi­cers in the San­gre Grande case were dis­charged based on the fail­ure of the po­lice to com­ply with court di­rec­tives for the pros­e­cu­tion of the case.

Late last week, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher an­nounced that she had ini­ti­at­ed dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings against three of­fi­cers who were in­volved in the probe of the San­gre Grande case and laid the charges.

She al­so said the Di­rec­tor of Pros­e­cu­tions of­fice has al­so been “en­gaged with re­spect to de­ter­min­ing the way for­ward” in re­la­tion to both cas­es.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has launched a probe in­to what tran­spired in the San­gre Grande case.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Joanne Archie stat­ed that the de­vel­op­ment in the Arou­ca case would not af­fect the steps al­ready be­ing tak­en by the TTPS that were pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced by Hare­wood-Christo­pher. “Noth­ing has re­al­ly changed. There must still be fur­ther dis­cus­sions with the DPP’s Of­fice,” Archie said.

Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion: Po­lice can’t be blamed; that re­sides in the do­main of the DPP

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, PCA Di­rec­tor David West de­clined to com­ment ex­ten­sive­ly on the de­vel­op­ment in the Arou­ca case un­til hav­ing sight of of­fi­cial re­ports.

How­ev­er, he said that based on the syn­op­sis pro­vid­ed by this news­pa­per, it ap­peared that a PCA probe may not be re­quired, as in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence can­not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly equate to po­lice mis­con­duct.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son not­ed that based on ini­tial re­ports, the po­lice could not be blamed for what tran­spired in the Arou­ca case.

“That re­sides in the do­main of the DPP, so I think some in­quiry has to be had there,” Dick­son said.

In a state­ment last week, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal called for the dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings to be held in pub­lic to im­prove trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS fol­low­ing the out­comes of both cas­es.

“The au­thor­i­ties have a crit­i­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and jus­tice in this mat­ter. There should al­so be sim­i­lar in­quiries in­to oth­er cas­es that col­lapsed due to the fail­ure of pros­e­cu­tors to ap­pear,” he said.

Mooni­lal al­so called for the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) of Par­lia­ment on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to con­vene an emer­gency ses­sion to ques­tion Hare­wood-Christo­pher and se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers on what tran­spired. He said the JSC, of which he is a mem­ber, could of­fer po­lice change rec­om­men­da­tions to pre­vent a re­cur­rence.

PCA probes case in­volv­ing 2 of­fi­cers held in sting op­er­a­tion

Mean­while, the PCA is in­ves­ti­gat­ing a case in­volv­ing two of­fi­cers from the San­ta Cruz Po­lice Sta­tion who were ar­rest­ed in an ex­tor­tion sting.

The two con­sta­bles were ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day dur­ing an op­er­a­tion led by In­spec­tor Daniel of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion.

They al­leged­ly de­mand­ed $1,000 each from a Span­ish-speak­ing in­di­vid­ual. Marked bills giv­en to the vic­tim were re­cov­ered dur­ing a search, lead­ing to their ar­rest. One of­fi­cer is a for­mer act­ing cor­po­ral in com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing.

PCA head David West con­firmed the probe and not­ed that sim­i­lar cas­es in­volv­ing of­fi­cers and mi­grants re­main un­re­solved.

The Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau is con­duct­ing its own in­ves­ti­ga­tion, with charges ex­pect­ed soon.

The in­ci­dent has sparked anger among ac­tivists, who high­light­ed the ex­ploita­tion of mi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly Venezue­lans. Ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon con­demned the ex­tor­tion and its broad­er im­pli­ca­tions.

“Women are told, ‘If you don’t do as I say, I will send you back on a boat or lock you up.’ It’s not just ex­tor­tion; it’s al­so rape,” she said.

Figueroa-Leon crit­i­cised the lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty, adding, “Who are you go­ing to re­port the po­lice to? The po­lice?” Figueroa-Leon called for de­ci­sive lead­er­ship, urg­ing Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher to fire cor­rupt of­fi­cers.

“The CoP looks in­com­pe­tent when these things oc­cur un­der her watch. She must lead her team or re­place those who are cor­rupt,” she said.

So­cial ac­tivist Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine echoed these con­cerns, not­ing sys­temic is­sues in law en­force­ment.

“This has been go­ing on a long time, but fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion keeps it un­der the radar,” she said, em­pha­sis­ing the need for in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. The San­ta Cruz case adds to a grow­ing list of po­lice cor­rup­tion in­ci­dents.