SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

An of­fi­cer from the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for slap­ping a cell phone out of the hand of a civil­ian.

A video that was shared on What­sApp showed a man try­ing to take a pho­to of the of­fi­cer us­ing his cell phone, who then slapped the phone out of the man’s hand.

No fur­ther in­for­ma­tion was cir­cu­lat­ed with the video, but it ap­peared to have hap­pened on East­ern Main Road, Curepe.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, one of­fi­cer said the con­sta­ble was in fact as­signed to the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion and said he was served with a Dis­ci­pli­nary No­tice.

The of­fi­cer said once a Dis­ci­pli­nary No­tice is served, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ini­ti­at­ed, and a tri­bunal held to de­ter­mine what ac­tion would be tak­en.

View the video, here...

https://www.cnc3.co.tt/wp-con­tent/up­loads/2024/01/po­lice-fling-phone.mp4

This in­ci­dent comes less than a week af­ter a Woman Po­lice Con­sta­ble (WPC) was served with a Dis­ci­pli­nary No­tice for scold­ing a vic­tim of a crime af­ter call­ing the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion.

An­oth­er TTPS of­fi­cial said such be­hav­iour was not ac­cept­able and not­ed that both of­fi­cers came from the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion was a cause for con­cern.

“On be­half of my­self and as an ex­ec­u­tive of the Ser­vice, I strong­ly con­demn this,” the TTPS of­fi­cial stat­ed. “We have our cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing and emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence train­ing for of­fi­cers but we may have to look at these things and won­der if it is com­ing to naught. Man­ners are sup­posed to come from the home so we will have to see if they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing any so­cial is­sues that re­quire some in­ter­ven­tion.”