Geisha Kow­lessar

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan has giv­en act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams a fail­ing grade for his per­for­mance in tack­ling mur­der and gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties.He was speak­ing to the me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter sign­ing the con­do­lence book for late Queen's Coun­sel Karl Hud­son-Phillips at Hud­son-Phillips's cham­bers, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.How­ev­er, the AG com­mend­ed Williams and his of­fi­cers for do­ing "re­mark­ably well" in de­creas­ing se­ri­ous crimes.

He said: "The sta­tis­tics do in fact show that act­ing com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and the Po­lice Ser­vice have per­formed re­mark­ably well on the ques­tion of se­ri­ous crimes."They have failed on the ques­tion of the mur­der rate and gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence and that is where the chal­lenge lies. For that, I think that is where there is room for im­prove­ment, dra­mat­i­cal­ly so."

Say­ing he was "ter­ri­bly dis­ap­point­ed" over the en­force­ment of law with re­spect to gangs, Raam­lo­gan man­dat­ed the Gang Sup­pres­sion Unit (Crim­i­nal Gang In­tel­li­gence Unit) of the Po­lice Ser­vice to "get its act to­geth­er to tar­get the gang lead­ers and the gang mem­bers," say­ing this re­mained a "sore point with the pop­u­la­tion."

On the is­sue of ap­point­ing a po­lice com­mis­sion­er, the AG de­scribed that as a "red her­ring," in­sist­ing some­one will be forced to per­form to the max­i­mum if left in an act­ing po­si­tion, since if that per­son did not meet the grade, some­one else would be placed at the helm.Ram­lo­gan al­so dis­missed the ar­gu­ment that if a sub­stan­tive po­lice com­mis­sion­er was ap­point­ed that would have a pos­i­tive ef­fect on tack­ling crime.

He said: "Peo­ple keep say­ing that this has some­thing to do in the fight against crime. I think it is a com­plete red her­ring, as a so­ci­ety, for us to be go­ing down that road and ac­cept and swal­low in a whole­sale man­ner that you have an act­ing com­mis­sion­er of po­lice so that is some­thing bad in the fight against crime."I am not so cer­tain the log­ic in that is one that is rea­son­able. I am in fact not an ad­vo­cate at all of hav­ing the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice ap­point­ed on a per­ma­nent ba­sis in the first in­stance.

"If they ap­point some­one on a per­ma­nent ba­sis and the man eh per­form­ing and in six months the mur­der rate dou­bles, what yuh go do?" Ram­lo­gan ques­tioned.He said when some­one was act­ing the per­for­mance would al­so be re­viewed from time-to-time.He added: "One would ex­pect they would want to give their very best so that they can get the job. You are act­ing and you want to give it your all... go be­yond the call of du­ty and you will be judged by that.

"You will then be able to get the best out of that per­son be­cause they will want to re­lieve them­selves of the act­ing sta­tus and prove they are the best man for the job."So if you make the man per­ma­nent, when he sleeps and gets up, a crime plan does ap­pear un­der­neath he pil­low? It is com­plete­ly il­log­i­cal and ir­ra­tional," Ram­lo­gan ar­gued.

He said it was in­ter­est­ing the PNM would be call­ing for a po­lice com­mis­sion­er to be ap­point­ed when un­der its rule peo­ple were act­ing in sev­er­al im­por­tant po­si­tions, in­clud­ing those of so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al and di­rec­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions."There was al­so no In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, no Firearms Ap­peal Board, no Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel and no Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. That was their track record," Ram­lo­gan added.