A Task Force po­lice of­fi­cer, who drew his firearm and point­ed it at his su­pe­ri­or when he was told to smoke on the oth­er side of the road at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, has been found guilty of as­sault. But PC Cordell Sa­landy was rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged yes­ter­day, af­ter his lawyer ar­gued that both the se­nior of­fi­cer and the de­fen­dant be­haved ag­gres­sive­ly in the in­ci­dent. Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen, in his rul­ing, said the in­ci­dent arose be­cause it was seem­ing­ly in­her­ent in Task Force of­fi­cers to be­have in a man­ner of se­mi-deco­rum.

"This is the dif­fi­cul­ty with po­lice gen­er­al­ly...Task Force po­lice be­lieve they can act in a cer­tain way and get away with it," Dabideen said yes­ter­day. Dabideen, sit­ting in the Port-of-Spain Eleventh Court, said it was even more star­tling that a po­lice­man would act in such an ag­gres­sive man­ner to­wards an­oth­er of­fi­cer. He crit­i­cised the be­hav­iour of both Sa­landy and vic­tim Sgt Daniel Moore, who ought to have been trained to act with more dis­ci­pline.

"It was a case of mis­be­hav­iour on both sides," Dabideen said. De­fence at­tor­ney Asha Watkins, who held for Kei­th Scot­land, con­tend­ed that be­cause of the con­duct of the men, her client should be rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged. In the State's case out­lined by Pros­e­cu­tor Lee Mer­ry, on May 5, 2006, Sa­landy was smok­ing in­side the Besson Street Sta­tion. Sgt Moore smelt a strong scent of to­bac­co smoke and told Sa­landy to go out­side the build­ing. Moore then again con­front­ed Sa­landy, this time out­side, and or­dered him to cross the street if he want­ed to smoke.

The two ex­changed words and Moore, who was head of the Re­peat Of­fend­ers Pro­gramme Task Force ac­ci­den­tal­ly touched Sa­landy on his shoul­der. Sa­landy then drew his firearm and point­ed it at Moore. Sa­landy had plead­ed not guilty to the charge and in his de­fence, he tes­ti­fied that dur­ing the con­fronta­tion, he was held by Moore in such a man­ner that he was chok­ing. In at­tempt­ing to break the sergeant's hold, Sa­landy said he ac­ci­den­tal­ly struck Moore. Sa­landy was dis­charged un­der Sec­tion 71(1)(A) of the Sum­ma­ry Courts Act.