The killing of Joshua Sama­roo by the po­lice in St Au­gus­tine on Jan­u­ary 20 has re­sult­ed in a sig­nif­i­cant and im­por­tant na­tion­al de­bate about the use by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers of body cam­eras.

The fact that none of the of­fi­cers in­volved in the high-speed ve­hic­u­lar chase that re­sult­ed in the death of Sama­roo were wear­ing body cam­eras meant that the de­bate, so far, has been framed by video footage from a home se­cu­ri­ty cam­era.

Many peo­ple view­ing the video on so­cial me­dia have come to the con­clu­sion that Sama­roo was at­tempt­ing to sur­ren­der be­cause he had his hands held above his head.

In a re­al sense, the cur­rent de­bate was fore­shad­owed by com­ments made by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der on June 18 last year.

Ques­tioned by jour­nal­ists at the of­fi­cial hand­ing over cer­e­mo­ny to wel­come Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der, re­marked, "I of­ten say this: My thing would have been to en­cour­age bul­let-proof vests be­fore body­cams. I nev­er said we are not putting it (body cam­eras). I said that if I had a choice, I would have brought in the bul­let-proof vests first."

Back in June, 2025, Mr Alexan­der said some em­pha­sis was still be­ing placed on body cam­eras.

"In or­der to get that trans­paren­cy and ev­i­dence base, you want to give the po­lice of­fi­cer the best op­tion to prove his in­no­cence and to give the pub­lic the trust and con­fi­dence that what the of­fi­cer is say­ing, did in fact hap­pen."

The min­is­ter's analy­sis that body cam­eras pro­vide trans­paren­cy that gives po­lice of­fi­cers the "best op­tion" to prove their in­no­cence, while giv­ing the pop­u­la­tion the trust and con­fi­dence that the po­lice ver­sion of what hap­pened at the scene of a shoot­ing is ac­cu­rate.

In short, there­fore, T&T's Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty was sig­nalling that body cam­eras are an ap­pro­pri­ate tool for both the po­lice and the pub­lic.

Giv­en the bal­ance, in­sight­ful­ness, ac­cu­ra­cy and even the elo­quence of Mr Alexan­der's state­ment in sup­port of body cam­eras, what is the pop­u­la­tion to think of the an­nounce­ment by the same min­is­ter on Sep­tem­ber 26, a lit­tle more than three months lat­er, that the Gov­ern­ment was can­celling the con­tract for 3,000 body cam­eras, which was award­ed in Au­gust 2024, as a means of sav­ing mon­ey?

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Vish­nu Dhan­paul, Mr Alexan­der said the ten­der for the 3,000 cam­eras was done in ac­cor­dance with the reg­u­la­tions es­tab­lished by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions.

“A let­ter of award was sub­se­quent­ly sub­mit­ted in Au­gust 2024 and was is­sued to a con­trac­tor in the sum of $24,965,310. On Sep­tem­ber 9, 2024, the con­trac­tor pro­vid­ed the po­lice ser­vice with a bond in the sum of $2,496,531. That con­tract has since been ter­mi­nat­ed."

Asked why the con­tracts were ter­mi­nat­ed, Alexan­der re­spond­ed, “In a bid to save mil­lions of dol­lars, the con­tract was in fact ter­mi­nat­ed.”

He said body cam­eras are part of the tools of a po­lice of­fi­cer, so ac­quir­ing the cam­eras was still a pri­or­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment.

It is be­yond com­pre­hen­sion that, in June, a min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment can iden­ti­fy body cam­eras for po­lice of­fi­cers as a so­lu­tion that pro­tects both the po­lice and the pop­u­la­tion and in Sep­tem­ber, that very same min­is­ter dis­clos­es the can­cel­la­tion of the con­tract to sup­ply the de­vices.

The can­cel­la­tion of the con­tract ex­pos­es the po­lice to all of the sus­pi­cion and mis­trust that has fol­lowed the Sama­roo killing. That lack of trust is dis­as­trous for the po­lice fight against crime, which de­pends on the will­ing­ness of eye­wit­ness­es and co-con­spir­a­tors to come for­ward and tes­ti­fy.