An­na-Lisa Paul

Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer, Po­lice Ser­vice, Sgt Wayne Mys­tar de­nies any fab­ri­ca­tion of crime sta­tis­tics and has pro­vid­ed an of­fi­cial break-down of the crimes and their re­spec­tive clas­si­fi­ca­tions. Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's dai­ly brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Mys­tar sought to ex­plain that the words "homi­cide" and "mur­der" should not be used in­ter­change­ably. Mys­tar was at the time, re­spond­ing to ques­tions from re­porters re­gard­ing claims by the Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley that sta­tis­tics pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed in the me­dia, had been al­tered in an at­tempt to im­prove the im­age of the po­lice ser­vice.

Re­in­forc­ing pri­or state­ments in which he de­fend­ed crime sta­tis­tics, Mys­tar yes­ter­day re­vealed that for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to Ju­ly 9, 2012:

• Homi­cides-229

• Mur­ders-214

• Manslaugh­ter-2

• In­quest-4

• DPP-1

• Un­clas­si­fied-25

• Fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings-8

Mys­tar lat­er said homi­cide was de­fined as "the un­law­ful killing of an­oth­er hu­man be­ing," whilst mur­der could be clas­si­fied as the "in­ten­tion­al killing of an­oth­er hu­man be­ing." He said homi­cides can oc­cur from oth­er means such as manslaugh­ter. Ques­tioned about whether Row­ley had been right in his claims that there were 20 more killings than re­port­ed as the of­fi­cial mur­der toll of the TTPS, Mys­tar said po­lice sta­tis­tics were usu­al­ly pro­vid­ed by the Kap­pa Unit.