An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

“The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice needs heal­ing and it is my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be­come a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for all mem­bers of the TTPS, as well as for all cit­i­zens of T&T.”

These were the words of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, who was yes­ter­day ap­proved by the Par­lia­ment as the next act­ing Com­mis­sion­er.

In a brief state­ment to Guardian Me­dia less than half an hour af­ter the an­nounce­ment was made at 3 pm yes­ter­day, that he had been ap­proved to re­place the sus­pend­ed CoP Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, he said, “I am ex­treme­ly hum­bled and grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue serv­ing.”

He was hes­i­tant to say any­thing fur­ther un­til he re­ceived his in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) or to even re­fer to him­self as act­ing CoP.

Un­cer­tain if he will be hand­ed the of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence to­day, Ben­jamin said un­til such time, he would on­ly con­sid­er the ap­point­ment as be­ing, “Ap­proved by the Par­lia­ment.”

In an im­me­di­ate nod of ap­proval, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal—who is al­so one of the op­po­si­tion UNC’s shad­ow min­is­ters for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, said, “We have no dif­fi­cul­ty with Mr Ben­jamin.”

Asked what words of ad­vice he had for Ben­jamin, Mooni­lal said, “Don’t do the dirty work of the PNM!”

Ben­jamin re­mained in the of­fice to which he was as­signed as the DCP, Op­er­a­tions, at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, up to yes­ter­day.

With a ca­reer span­ning over 35 years as a law en­force­ment of­fi­cer, Ben­jamin, who is 53 years old and is the fa­ther of a ten-year-old girl—has a vast reper­toire of ex­pe­ri­ence which in­cludes chair­ing the CoP’s fort­night­ly COMP­STAT meet­ings; prepar­ing, mon­i­tor­ing and mea­sur­ing per­for­mance ap­praisals for all mem­bers of staff; and main­tain­ing records for per­son­nel and equip­ment.

He has al­so act­ed as a Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer; and was As­sis­tant Chair­man of the Pro­mo­tion Ad­vi­so­ry Board 2023.

Be­fore he was ap­point­ed DCP, Op­er­a­tions, on March 1, 2024—Ben­jamin held the post of As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), Tac­ti­cal Sup­port, from April 2023 to Feb­ru­ary 2024.

An As­sis­tant Bish­op with the Pen­te­costal As­sem­blies of the West In­dies (PAWI) North West Dis­trict since 2021, Ben­jamin has in the past, cred­it­ed his un­wa­ver­ing faith for see­ing him through his ca­reer thus far.

Ben­jamin came un­der fire of a dif­fer­ent na­ture last week­end af­ter a vi­ral video sur­faced on Sun­day in which he was seen wear­ing a bul­let­proof vest as he de­liv­ered a ser­mon on Au­gust 4, 2024.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on Mon­day, he ex­plained the il­lus­trat­ed ser­mon which had been ti­tled Bat­tle Warn­ing, sought to un­der­score that peo­ple must al­ways be pre­pared for bat­tle.

Crit­i­cised for don­ning a bul­let­proof vest dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion, he as­sured it was not po­lice is­sued and was not part of his reg­u­lar church at­tire.

As to his af­fir­ma­tions that he would make a good CoP should he be se­lect­ed to serve in the post, Ben­jamin de­fend­ed the state­ment which drew ire from some quar­ters as he said it was a way to en­cour­age oth­ers to dream.

Mean­while, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), Crime, Curt Si­mon, was al­so ap­proved as a DCP dur­ing the de­bate yes­ter­day.

Con­tact­ed for his re­ac­tion last evening, Si­mon said, “I’ll with­hold com­ments un­til the process is com­plet­ed please.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was sus­pend­ed by the PolSC on Jan­u­ary 31, af­ter she was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles. She was re­leased from po­lice cus­tody last Sat­ur­day with­out charge.