As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar says his im­me­di­ate fo­cus as new head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS) will be sta­bil­i­sa­tion, re­build­ing morale and restor­ing pub­lic trust as the ser­vice grap­ples with se­ri­ous in­ter­nal chal­lenges.

Mys­tar was named as a re­place­ment for for­mer TTMPS head Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, who was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave last week fol­low­ing the mur­der of WPC Anus­ka Everse­ly and the re­port­ed theft of a cache of arms and am­mu­ni­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion.

Hours be­fore Ever­s­ley’s fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, three men, in­clud­ing a serv­ing mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer, ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly in court charged with sev­er­al of­fences, in­clud­ing her mur­der. They were re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Mys­tar said he ac­cept­ed the as­sign­ment al­though on ex­tend­ed leave, de­scrib­ing his readi­ness to serve in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

“I was al­ways will­ing and able to serve. This is the on­ly thing I knew from adult­hood. So this is my ca­reer. Any­thing to do with law en­force­ment,” he said.

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion cur­rent­ly faces in­ter­nal strain and low morale, which he in­tends to ad­dress as a pri­or­i­ty.

“My im­me­di­ate fo­cus, of course, would be sta­bil­i­sa­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, be­cause I ob­served that they are op­er­at­ing un­der a sense of, you know, the morale is very low as we speak,” he said.

Mys­tar said re­build­ing con­fi­dence and im­prov­ing morale among of­fi­cers and restor­ing pub­lic trust will be crit­i­cal.

He al­so point­ed to the need for clear­er op­er­a­tional struc­tures with­in the TTMPS, which falls un­der the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. He said the ser­vice was orig­i­nal­ly es­tab­lished to man­age mu­nic­i­pal as­sets and en­force laws with­in city and bor­ough bound­aries, but of­fi­cers of­ten per­form broad­er law en­force­ment func­tions than the pub­lic re­alis­es. How­ev­er, he said the ser­vice re­quires clear­er pro­to­cols and re­port­ing struc­tures sim­i­lar to those in the TTPS.

He al­so plans to in­tro­duce a struc­tured com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy to im­prove pub­lic un­der­stand­ing of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers’ roles.

“Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is very, very im­por­tant to get a mes­sage out. When you don’t get the com­mu­ni­ca­tion out, per­sons come up with their own ver­sions,” he said, adding mis­in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing re­cent in­ci­dents had fur­ther un­der­mined pub­lic con­fi­dence.

He al­so in­tends to en­gage of­fi­cers di­rect­ly across mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties in the com­ing weeks, be­yond com­mand-lev­el brief­in­gs.

“I’ll be vis­it­ing all mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties just to hear,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about dis­ci­pline, Mys­tar warned that poor habits can de­vel­op with­out con­sis­tent over­sight, stress­ing the im­por­tance of su­per­vi­sion.

“You may see some­thing hap­pen in a par­tic­u­lar way, nip it in the bud. Some­times we al­low things to fes­ter,” he said.

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion must avoid sit­u­a­tions where ear­ly warn­ing signs are ig­nored un­til they es­ca­late in­to se­ri­ous breach­es.

When asked about his lead­er­ship style, Mys­tar said he in­tends to be vis­i­ble and en­gaged in day-to-day op­er­a­tions.

“I want to lead from the front. That is my style. The of­fi­cers can see me out on the field,” he said, adding his ap­proach will be firm but fair as the ser­vice moves in­to a pe­ri­od of re­form and re­cov­ery.