Last Sat­ur­day (Ju­ly 22), I en­dured two sit­u­a­tions both in­volv­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) which might I add are there to pro­tect and serve with pride.

Be­fore I share the two sit­u­a­tions let me ac­knowl­edge that there are more good po­lice of­fi­cers than there are bad and not every en­counter with the TTPS is a neg­a­tive one.

In one sit­u­a­tion, I was at fault hav­ing made an hon­est mis­take. But did my mis­take mer­it the pub­lic hu­mil­i­a­tion and ver­bal abuse in front of men, women and chil­dren on the Diego Mar­tin Main Road? Well, the TTPS Sergeant’s con­cept of mod­ern-day polic­ing was a loud and ver­bal tongue-lash­ing, in­struc­tions to block traf­fic and “stay there” and be made a pub­lic laugh­ing stock. It is iron­ic that dur­ing a com­mu­ni­ty Eman­ci­pa­tion pa­rade, a mem­ber of the TTPS will reprise the colo­nial be­hav­iour of Cap­tain Bak­er.

I qui­et­ly en­dured it all be­cause I had com­mit­ted to the or­gan­is­ers of the RBC West Penn Is­land Wide Com­mu­ni­ty Youth Un­der-20 Tour­na­ment to at­tend their grand fi­nal at the Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex.

My de­ci­sion to take the Diego Mar­tin main road proved an er­ror. The traf­fic con­ges­tion caused by the com­mu­ni­ty Eman­ci­pa­tion pa­rade made it prob­lem­at­ic to reach in time for the 7 pm kick-off. At 7.55 pm, I was still stuck in traf­fic. I should have tak­en a de­tour but didn’t. An er­ror of judge­ment that re­sult­ed in my pub­lic chas­tise­ment and ridicule from Sergeant “Pro­tect and Serve”. My lived ex­pe­ri­ence of the bi­ased re­al­i­ty of pro­fil­ing. We are eman­ci­pat­ed but not yet free. I will get over my en­counter with Sergeant Pro­tect and Serve. My ex­pe­ri­ence isn’t unique. Plus this Bel­mont-born and grow “bouff” proof, a long time now.

The oth­er sit­u­a­tion is one where my life and that of my fam­i­ly were threat­ened. In these times, that we live in, a death threat is no jok­ing mat­ter. Here is where I use the word al­leged. The threat to kill was made by some­one who al­leged “the Po­lice” told him that I and my fam­i­ly were in­form­ers.

Let me say cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that nei­ther I nor my fam­i­ly had any­thing to do with the par­tic­u­lar mat­ter. It is a false ac­cu­sa­tion with no shred of truth.

But the harsh re­al­i­ty is that al­le­ga­tions that cer­tain mem­bers of the TTPS may give out in­for­ma­tion or mis­in­for­ma­tion that put peo­ple’s lives at risk aren’t an un­heard one. That be­ing said. I didn’t al­low ei­ther sit­u­a­tion to damp­en my de­ter­mi­na­tion to ho­n­our my word and com­mit­ment.

The time spent at the Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex was a re­fresh­ing respite. The en­thu­si­asm, pas­sion and pos­i­tive en­er­gy of the young peo­ple, their friends and fam­i­lies and the com­mu­ni­ty on the field of play and in the stands were won­der­ful to see.

The or­gan­is­ers of the tour­na­ment - West Penn Cen­ter for Sports & Cul­ture was found­ed by Messrs Sel­wyn Luces and Shur­land Hart­ley to cre­ate av­enues to in­volve at-risk youths from Co­corite, Diego Mar­tin, Care­nage and Mar­aval in­to pos­i­tive ac­tiv­i­ties. Enor­mous cred­it must go to West Penn - for its at-risk youth de­vel­op­ment vi­sion and ded­i­ca­tion. Cred­it al­so to RBC for sup­port­ing a youth-fo­cused com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed event.

If we want to erad­i­cate crime, change and in­ter­ven­tions must hap­pen at the com­mu­ni­ty and grass­roots lev­el. Our com­mu­ni­ties must be­come safe spaces. Crime, in­clud­ing gang vi­o­lence, is a symp­tom of so­cial cri­sis. We will on­ly see change for the bet­ter when we be­come in­ten­tion­al about com­mu­ni­ty and grass­roots trans­for­ma­tion as a way of life.