Camille Clarke

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs says di­rec­tor of the Pub­lic Af­fairs Unit of the Po­lice Ser­vice, Sharon Lee As­sang is in tune with the af­fairs of the ser­vice. Gibbs was speak­ing at the Port Po­lice Pass­ing Out Pa­rade at the Cruise Ship Com­plex, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day last. Twen­ty five re­cruits passed out as the first batch trained by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice un­der its Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice and Law En­force­ment Train­ing Pro­gramme Unit. Lee As­sang was crit­i­cised last week when she said cit­i­zens in their yards, porch­es or gal­leries could be ar­rest­ed un­der the State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions.

"The pub­lic af­fairs di­rec­tor is very in tune to the is­sues of the po­lice ser­vice and to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic. We look at a uni­formed mem­ber be­cause that is what we are ac­cus­tomed to, to fill the gap," Gibbs said. Re­fer­ring to the reg­u­la­tions on cit­i­zens out­side dur­ing cur­few hours, Gibbs said: "When it comes to in­ter­pre­ta­tion, we have a lawyer look at it. We do not need a lawyer to go to me­dia con­fer­ences for ob­vi­ous rea­sons." He said Lee As­sang is not a lawyer and that the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy clar­i­fied the reg­u­la­tion. He said sol­diers and po­lice of­fi­cers were fol­low­ing the law to the let­ter. "The let­ter of the law is peo­ple should not be out­side. The spir­it does not pre­vent us from be­ing out­side and en­joy­ing the stars. We will deal with the cur­few laws when they are out in a pub­lic do­main," Gibbs said.

"When the prop­er­ty is not fenced, that is when it is a sil­ly gam­ble. We, as of­fi­cers look at the let­ter and spir­it of the law and how to en­force it in an eth­i­cal man­ner. Not every per­son has the an­swers," he said. When asked about ASP Joanne Archie who used to host the news con­fer­ences, he said: "She has had health is­sues and has been gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion for the pub­lic af­fairs unit. We have peo­ple who are trans­ferred. That can hap­pen any time. We have no de­sire to have her trans­ferred. These are in­ter­nal is­sues that I won't dis­cuss any fur­ther."

Mean­while, Gibbs said, the port was an im­por­tant place to the se­cu­ri­ty of the na­tion. "It is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant as a ma­rine port. The se­cu­ri­ty of the port is vul­ner­a­ble to ter­ror­ist at­tacks due to its sheer size, lo­ca­tions to the city, the car­go they han­dle each day," he said. "You should lead by ex­am­ple and be above re­proach. It is a dif­fi­cult and de­mand­ing pro­fes­sion with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty," Gibbs told the re­cruits.

Re­cruit awardees

Best Shot-Shane Lewis,

Best All round-Bar­ry Tor­res,

Best Drill- Bar­ry Tor­res,

Most Im­proved-Tami­ka Best

Most Dis­ci­pline-Kevin John.