Akash Sama­roo

The head of Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice's Cen­tral Di­vi­sion is seek­ing to as­sure the pub­lic that his of­fi­cers will con­tin­ue to con­duct their busi­ness in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner, de­spite strong con­dem­na­tion from a for­mer di­vi­sion head who be­lieves they are be­ing too soft with crim­i­nals.

Speak­ing at a town hall meet­ing on crime in Fe­lic­i­ty on Wednes­day evening, for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent John­ny Abra­ham said of­fi­cers are fail­ing to send the cor­rect mes­sage. Ref­er­enc­ing a home in­va­sion in Aranguez, San Juan, over the East­er week­end, Abra­ham ques­tioned why on­ly one of the sus­pects was killed.

“One man was shot and killed, but the thing is that they hold the next five, what dif­fer­ence it would have made with the next five? I not telling the po­lice to com­mit any mur­der, but what dif­fer­ence it would have made with the next five? When you send that kind of mes­sage, you want to bet me they don’t come back to rob peo­ple.”

Some­one from the au­di­ence chimed in with, “We need stronger laws.”

“Laws?” Abra­ham said, look­ing in­to the crowd, “Waste of time in this coun­try! Imag­ine I re­tire sev­en years now and I have mat­ters in court since 2000! Great is the PNM, that is why they will nev­er want me come back.”

The crit­i­cism of po­lice of­fi­cers did not end there, how­ev­er, as the for­mer cen­tral di­vi­sion head said the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, “has the worst set of of­fi­cers work­ing there.”

Con­tact­ed on Abra­ham's crit­i­cism, how­ev­er, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Michael Pierre, who is the cur­rent head of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, be­lieves while Abra­ham is en­ti­tled to his opin­ion, the "clear mes­sage" that his of­fi­cers are send­ing is that crime is every­one's busi­ness.

Pierre said his of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to li­aise with all stake­hold­ers in the pub­lic to en­sure so­ci­ety as a whole con­tributes to less­en­ing the fear of crime.

He said the TTPS must be wary of the mes­sage it is send­ing to the pub­lic and that's why their tac­tics right now fo­cus on meet­ing with the peo­ple. The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion head said com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment is a ma­jor pil­lar of their work and they in­tend to hold a meet­ing with the peo­ple of Fe­lic­i­ty next Wednes­day.

"Once we get that up and run­ning and we em­pow­er peo­ple and cre­ate en­gage­ment, we will see changes not just with crime but so­ci­ety as well, so while I un­der­stand Mr Abra­ham's fo­cus, we are in a new dis­pen­sa­tion and we need to do things in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner."

And while Pierre ad­mit­ted there are some cus­tomer re­la­tions is­sues at po­lice sta­tions, he sought to as­sure that they are be­ing dealt with by the TTPS.

But the pub­lic was not spared as well by Abra­ham dur­ing the meet­ing, as he urged them to stop mak­ing them­selves “soft tar­gets” and when con­front­ed with crim­i­nals they should, “deal with them.”

“I not telling you all what to do if some­body comes in your house and you all arm your­selves with cut­lass­es, deal with them in what­ev­er man­ner you see fit but know what to say af­ter, and I could stand up here and tell you that I de­fend­ed peo­ple who deal with crim­i­nals and I not afraid of no back en­quiries. David West (Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty di­rec­tor) and them have their work to do and the po­lice ser­vice have their work to do.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed West who, af­ter re­view­ing Abra­ham’s state­ment, urged the pub­lic to op­er­ate with­in the law.

“The PCA wish­es to re­mind the pub­lic that cit­i­zens and mem­bers of the TTPS are re­quired to com­ply with the law. Po­lice of­fi­cers are trained and al­lowed to use lethal force in cir­cum­stances set out in their Use of Force Pol­i­cy. They have been en­trust­ed to pro­tect and serve the mem­bers of the pub­lic and not to pro­mote il­le­gal­i­ty.”

Promi­nent at­tor­neys are al­so warn­ing that self de­fence is not a clear-cut is­sue.

“It is im­por­tant for any­one with le­gal train­ing to speak in clear terms about mat­ters such as self-de­fence. You are en­ti­tled to de­fend your­self or even a fam­i­ly mem­ber. How you do so will de­pend on the cir­cum­stances,” said Sophia Chote, Se­nior Coun­sel.

"There are le­gal prin­ci­ples which will guide an of­fi­cer or the DPP in de­ter­min­ing whether to charge you with a crim­i­nal of­fence. For ex­am­ple, if your re­sponse was dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the threat faced, you may find your­self fac­ing a crim­i­nal charge and hav­ing to de­fend your­self in court.”

Al­so com­ment­ing on the mat­ter, at­tor­ney Ra­jiv Per­sad used a pre­vi­ous case as an ex­am­ple.

“We have had cas­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go where a man came in­to some­one’s yard to thief an av­o­ca­do and the land own­er shoots him but he ends up get­ting charged, be­cause what you are sup­posed to do is to as­cer­tain if you are be­ing at­tacked and use rea­son­able force. What that means is if a man is com­ing at you and gives you two cuff, you don’t pull out a gun and shoot him, there has to be some lev­el of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty.”

Per­sad said while the pub­lic has a right to de­fend them­selves and their loved ones, “they have to make sure that it reach­es a stage where they are un­der threat, and even at that stage, if you choose to use force, you need to do so in a rea­son­able and pro­por­tion­ate way.”

Al­so speak­ing at the meet­ing, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly lament­ed the mur­der of Cen­tral busi­ness­man Rishard Ali on Tues­day night.

Ali was killed dur­ing a car­jack­ing, af­ter he re­sist­ed his at­tack­er.

“The in­for­ma­tion that I have re­ceived is that Mr Ali had ap­plied for his FUL (Firearms Users Li­cence). For­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith had signed off on it, and Mr Ali re­ceived a pro­vi­sion­al firearm li­cence. But then Mr Grif­fith was bizarrely re­moved as CoP and Mr Ali nev­er re­ceived fi­nal ap­proval for his FUL. I will not mince my words, this Row­ley-led PNM Gov­ern­ment has blood on their hands,” he said.