One of the most under-appreciated branches of our protective services is the Trinidad and Tobago Municipal Police Service (TTMPS). Ironically enough, its mandate to execute the laws and statutes of local government institutions is the foundational principle of our earliest police forces so that our first police service really was a municipal one.
When he was given full control of the island in 1797, the first British governor, Lt Col Sir Thomas Picton inherited a colony with Spanish laws, largely French-speaking inhabitants and the air of a wild-west town. He immediately imposed severe martial law with harsh punishments for infractions and a penchant for execution, torture and banishment at the slightest instigation.
Maintenance of civil authority in the capital city of Port-of-Spain was not forgotten since Picton is known to have appointed a chief of police and eight constables to enforce minor ordinances, thus forming simultaneously a municipal and our first police service.
The tiny police force was almost instantly overwhelmed by the rowdy populace and were only partially supported by the military garrison sequestered at what is now the present site of the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. In 1840 the old Spanish laws were scrapped and a British legal system introduced. This formalised the role and functions of the police.
Far to the south in San Fernando, municipal governance had been awarded to the town in 1846 and among the first acts of the new town council was the engagement of stipendiary constables to keep law and a order in the town which meant that the island's second police force was also municipal.
One of the more bizarre duties of the police in San Fernando was the monitoring of water distribution in the dry season since the town relied until 1899 on a muddy pond for sustenance. The pond was fenced and barrels of water would be taken from it and poured into concrete cisterns called 'dippers' located at strategic points throughout the town.
Burgesses would line up at the dippers with buckets and be accorded the water sparingly by a police constable; often leading to brawls and arrests, reaching a head in the 1880s when two housewives quarrelled and one stabbed the other to death.
In 1835 the police force began to expand and resembled the modern organisation today. Nearly every village of importance from Cedros to Toco had its little police station with a sergeant, corporal and two constables.
In the city of Port-of-Spain and (then) borough of San Fernando, the officers were still vested with certain odd responsibilities such as manning the horsedrawn fire engine (until the Trinidad and Tobago Fire Service was formed in the 1950s), acting as postmen and even the impounders of feral goats.
Fully incorporated by the Municipal Corporations Act of 1990, each borough, city and regional corporation has its cadre of dedicated and hardworking municipal police whose interesting history and sterling work have long since been sidelined in the wider law enforcement landscape.