Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin is promis­ing to be a com­mis­sion­er for all the peo­ple un­der his watch in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and is con­fi­dent that once he gets the sup­port of his charges, he will have a suc­cess­ful year.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day af­ter he toured the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing and met both civil­ians and po­lice alike.

In a video shared by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Au­dio Vi­su­al Unit, Ben­jamin said he want­ed to in­tro­duce him­self to “re­al­ly just give a greet­ing.”

Pok­ing fun at a re­cent con­tro­ver­sy over him preach­ing in a bul­let­proof vest, Ben­jamin said: “As you recog­nise, I do not have my bul­let­proof vest on so it’s not go­ing to be long. I am here to be a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for all, for Spe­cial Re­serve of­fi­cers, for reg­u­lar po­lice of­fi­cers, for the civil­ian staff, for every per­son.”

Ben­jamin, who was ap­point­ed to act as Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er on Thurs­day by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), said he re­quired the best from his staff, as he hopes to give them the best.

“I want to en­sure that all per­sons with­in the TTPS, at least you have the right fa­cil­i­ties, you have the right equip­ment, you have the right train­ing. What­ev­er you need, I must en­sure that it is done and there­fore in re­turn, I’m ask­ing that you re­al­ly give me your best. It has to be that every­body would raise the stan­dard to en­sure that the TTPS pro­duce its very best.”

He said the TTPS is un­der a “new sea­son, a new time” and is con­fi­dent there will be a pos­i­tive change not just with­in the po­lice but for the coun­try.

“Let us work to­geth­er and let us see true suc­cess be­cause suc­cess is small things done cor­rect­ly, con­sis­tent­ly. So, let’s start with that and I’m cer­tain that in the end, we will have a suc­cess­ful year.”

Mean­while, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to sus­pend­ed top cop Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher in the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pro­cure­ment of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency con­tin­ues.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed and kept in po­lice cus­tody for three days be­fore her re­lease last Sat­ur­day from the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion with­out charges be­ing laid. How­ev­er, the TTPS says the probe is on­go­ing.