Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day ho­n­oured 28 of­fi­cers for their ef­forts in re­mov­ing over 30 il­le­gal firearms and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion off the na­tion’s streets dur­ing the past month.

The awards and com­men­da­tion cer­e­mo­ny at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, lift­ed the spir­its of the of­fi­cers, with one in­di­cat­ing, “It is nice that our work is be­ing ac­knowl­edged and that we not out there just putting our lives in dan­ger in the field, with no thanks to get.”

Shin­ing the spot­light on the law en­force­ment per­son­nel work­ing both along­side and un­der him, Gue­var­ro ac­knowl­edged the sup­port of the team of of­fi­cers he cred­it­ed for be­ing his totem pole.

Glanc­ing around at those present, he said, “I see seat­ed here be­fore me to­day, the fu­ture of our great or­gan­i­sa­tion. I see seat­ed here be­fore me to­day, the per­sons who will take the man­tle of lead­er­ship af­ter my­self and the ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers cur­rent­ly be­fore you have gone on.”

He said the of­fi­cers be­ing award­ed had an­swered the clar­i­on call, “to go forth and take what is now con­sid­ered the most dan­ger­ous item to our na­tion’s se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty off the streets, that be­ing firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.”

The CoP added, “Each of you here to­day would not on­ly have tak­en those firearms and am­mu­ni­tion off the street, but you would have held per­sons ac­count­able for their ac­tions.”

Say­ing he hoped the ges­ture would be a sign of en­cour­age­ment to oth­er of­fi­cers that the TTPS will not shirk its du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, the CoP ap­pealed to the pub­lic to part­ner with the TTPS to take back T&T.

Gue­var­ro said there were “per­sons hell-bent on see­ing us fail be­cause it was bet­ter for them, as it can line their pock­ets and it can stroke their egos.”

He urged of­fi­cers, “Do not let the neg­a­tive nar­ra­tives of per­sons who should know bet­ter af­fect the way in which you car­ry out your du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the mem­bers of the pub­lic.

“Hold your head up high as mem­bers of the TTPS and feel proud of your ac­com­plish­ment of hav­ing tak­en weapons which could con­tin­ue to de­stroy lives and fam­i­lies off the streets.”

Of­fer­ing ad­vice, Gue­var­ro said al­though po­lice of­fi­cers of­ten had their in­tegri­ty ques­tioned, they should strive to live by the re­frain, “Be it re­solved that that is the one thing that no one can take from you.”

He urged all to live trans­par­ent­ly and ac­cept ac­count­abil­i­ty in serv­ing the pub­lic.

Al­so de­liv­er­ing brief re­marks was T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, who said he was sur­prised at the speed with which the CoP had act­ed.

He de­scribed the cer­e­mo­ny as aus­pi­cious, adding, “I can­not re­call when last we would have ho­n­oured of­fi­cers in such a time­ly man­ner for the work they would have done out on the fields of op­er­a­tion.”