Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Col­leagues and friends of the late re­tired po­lice­woman Ru­by Lewis say that she paved the way for oth­er women in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to fol­low, not­ing that her con­tri­bu­tions to the ser­vice, par­tic­u­lar­ly the for­ma­tion and man­age­ment of ear­ly Po­lice Youth Clubs, are a mod­el fol­lowed to this day.

Lewis, 88, passed away on Au­gust 1.

Lewis joined the TTPS in 1957 when she was 18-years-old and re­tired as a Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice, af­ter serv­ing in 16 dif­fer­ent units and branch­es through­out her law en­force­ment ca­reer, which spanned 41 years.

The TTPS Women’s Bu­reau ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to her rel­a­tives, not­ing that her work in Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing was an ex­am­ple to many of­fi­cers.

“Through­out her com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing era, she im­pact­ed the lives of many young peo­ple and the most re­mark­able was when she worked in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion with a trou­bled teenage girl, who spent the re­main­der of her teenage years at the St Mary’s Chil­dren’s Home in Tacarigua.

“Years lat­er, Ms Lewis re­ceived a wed­ding in­vi­ta­tion from the then teenag­er who went on to lead a pos­i­tive, hap­py life.”

Speak­ing with WE Life and Cul­ture, re­tired po­lice­woman Julie Car­ring­ton said she worked along­side Lewis in the Po­lice Wel­fare Branch and the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion.

Re­call­ing one in­ci­dent at the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion in 1990, where a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cer ac­ci­den­tal­ly fired a shot caus­ing some pan­ic, Car­ring­ton said Lewis im­me­di­ate­ly sought her pro­tec­tion.

“In those days we kept the (po­lice) sta­tion dark. We couldn’t put on lights in the sta­tion at all.

“She was so con­cerned about me be­cause I was on­ly off of ma­ter­ni­ty leave for a month and I hid my­self be­hind a desk. She asked me, ‘You com­fort­able? You okay? Stay there, stay there... You have a child to see about,’ she was gen­uine­ly con­cerned.

“She wasn’t an or­di­nary moth­er fig­ure not just to me and oth­er women po­lice but to male of­fi­cers.”

Car­ring­ton al­so served along­side Lewis dur­ing the events of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, not­ing that while she was not work­ing on Fri­day, Ju­ly 27th when the ini­tial at­tacks un­fold­ed, she did re­port for du­ty two days lat­er, which led to her be­ing rep­ri­mand­ed by an­oth­er fe­male se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer for not ar­riv­ing to work on the day of the at­tacks them­selves, de­spite re­cent­ly re­turn­ing from ma­ter­ni­ty leave.

“Ms Lewis stepped in for me and told her ‘, You don’t know what it’s like to take care of two ba­bies in two years.’ She re­al­ly de­fend­ed me. She was a phe­nom­e­nal woman.”

Car­ring­ton, who was al­so re­spon­si­ble for Po­lice Youth Clubs dur­ing her ca­reer, said she did her best to em­u­late Lewis’ sense of com­pas­sion and fair­ness to oth­ers.

An­oth­er for­mer col­league, re­tired Sgt Mary Reid, said that Lewis en­tered the po­lice ser­vice at a time when women po­lice of­fi­cers faced dif­fi­cul­ties in per­cep­tion from male col­leagues, not­ing that there were chal­lenges to over­come with­in the in­sti­tu­tion and the mind­sets of oth­er of­fi­cers at the time.

“It was al­ways hard­er, be­cause we were first un­der the Women Po­lice Branch and no mat­ter how ed­u­cat­ed you were or how well you per­formed, you couldn’t go fur­ther than what the branch re­quired of you.

“When we were put in­to the gen­er­al (po­lice) ser­vice, you would have pres­sures to climb, but she did climb. She was so good and fair that the road was open for her and she made her way.

“Her work in the youth club re­al­ly dis­tin­guished her and when the then DCP Den­nis Ramd­war chose her to man­age the Youth Clubs... he was a very par­tic­u­lar man and when she did the work he was pleased with, rec­om­men­da­tions had to fol­low.”

Reid said the Po­lice Youth Clubs were cre­at­ed in 1974 by then Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Overand Pad­more, who passed on a di­rec­tive to then Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er An­tho­ny May in at-risk com­mu­ni­ties as a crime pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy and a mech­a­nism of scout­ing for po­ten­tial po­lice re­cruits.

She added that Lewis’ work in the Youth Clubs high­light­ed the tal­ent and cre­ativ­i­ty of young peo­ple in many parts of the coun­try.