Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings have surged, reach­ing 55 in­ci­dents in 2025 af­ter a slight dip in pre­vi­ous years, ac­cord­ing to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA).

Da­ta showed that fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings rose sharply to 55 in­ci­dents in 2025, fol­low­ing 37 in­ci­dents in 2024 and 39 in­ci­dents in 2023. Non-fa­tal shoot­ings were al­so re­port­ed, with 19 in­ci­dents record­ed in 2025.

In re­sponse to ques­tions sent via email yes­ter­day, a spokesper­son for the PCA said they were “cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic” that there would be few­er po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, not­ing that the loss of any life was of “se­ri­ous con­cern.”

“While the PCA does not spec­u­late on polic­ing out­comes, it con­tin­ues to ful­fil its over­sight man­date by in­de­pen­dent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, high­light­ing is­sues of non-com­pli­ance or sys­temic con­cern where they arise and mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions aimed at strength­en­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty and ad­her­ence to es­tab­lished stan­dards.

“Mat­ters re­lat­ing to polic­ing op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing the use of force, fall with­in the re­mit of the TTPS.”

In March 2025, PCA di­rec­tor David West ac­cused po­lice of­fi­cers of ig­nor­ing their de­part­men­tal or­ders, as there was no record of body-worn cam­era footage for po­lice killings that year.

The au­thor­i­ty did not con­firm whether spe­cif­ic meet­ings were held with the TTPS or Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der since rais­ing these con­cerns but said they were in fre­quent con­tact with law en­force­ment stake­hold­ers as part of their du­ties.

“In keep­ing with its statu­to­ry man­date, the PCA rou­tine­ly en­gages with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers on mat­ters af­fect­ing po­lice ac­count­abil­i­ty and op­er­a­tional com­pli­ance. Any con­cerns are doc­u­ment­ed and com­mu­ni­cat­ed through es­tab­lished in­sti­tu­tion­al chan­nels.”

The PCA ex­plained that this in­volves doc­u­ment­ing any con­cerns over the ab­sence of body cam­era footage and send­ing cor­re­spon­dence to the nec­es­sary in­sti­tu­tions.

Da­ta from the au­thor­i­ty al­so re­port­ed that the num­ber of re­ports made by the pub­lic has pro­gres­sive­ly de­clined in re­cent years, with 1,032 re­ports filed for 2025, com­pared to 1,132 in 2024 and 1,140 in 2023.

In 2025, from the 1,032 re­ports, 686 com­plaints were gen­er­at­ed.