While he re­mains large­ly un­known to the pub­lic and even with­in some T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) cir­cles, act­ing Snr Supt Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has been put for­ward by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) as the top can­di­date to be this coun­try’s next po­lice com­mis­sion­er.

Gue­var­ro, a vet­er­an po­lice­man who spent most of his ca­reer as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch, sur­passed can­di­dates on the mer­it list of of­fi­cers vy­ing for the post, in­clud­ing his cur­rent boss, act­ing CoP Ju­nior Ben­jamin.

Gue­var­ro, to­geth­er with ACP Wayne Mys­tar, were sub­mit­ted to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for con­sid­er­a­tion for the ranks of CoP and act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­spec­tive­ly.

The PolSC did not pro­vide a mer­it list­ing. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands it in­clud­ed cur­rent act­ing CoP Ju­nior Ben­jamin; Gue­var­ro, ACP Mys­tar; act­ing DCP Curt Si­mon; DCP Suzette Mar­tin; ACP Anand Rame­sar; Snr Supt Clint Arthur; Snr Supt Sub­has Ramkhelawan; for­mer ACP Joseph Chan­dool; ACP Ter­rence Pierre; and Lt Colonel Shel­don Ra­manan.

The can­di­date choic­es may be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands. (See page 8)

Ques­tions sent to the PolSC’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit via email yes­ter­day, seek­ing clar­i­ty on where Gue­var­ro ranked in the mer­it list, as well as his ex­pe­ri­ence in polic­ing, but did not re­ceive any re­sponse up to press time. Ef­forts to con­tact PolSC chair­man Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.

Guardian Me­dia tried to con­tact Gue­var­ro sev­er­al times via phone call and What­sApp yes­ter­day but did not re­ceive any re­sponse.

Po­lice sources said Gue­var­ro grad­u­at­ed from the po­lice acad­e­my in 1996, has stud­ied at the In­ter­na­tion­al Law En­force­ment Acad­e­my in El Sal­vador and is the hold­er of an MBA. He was one of three per­sons as­signed to probe the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as­pect of the Feb­ru­ary 2022 na­tion­wide black­out, which was lat­er found to be an “act of God.”

Sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers yes­ter­day said while they had heard of Gue­var­ro in pass­ing, they were not fa­mil­iar with his lead­er­ship style, qual­i­fi­ca­tions or ex­pe­ri­ence in polic­ing out­side of the Spe­cial Branch.

“He’s like a ghost re­al­ly. We have heard of him here and there, but to say we know him to be in meet­ings or so on, I can’t hon­est­ly say that,” one of­fi­cer said.

But a re­tired se­nior po­lice­man not­ed that Gue­var­ro was a “qual­i­fied and com­pe­tent” po­lice­man who took his du­ties se­ri­ous­ly.

“I know he has some ex­pe­ri­ence in the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment (CID) and the front of­fice of po­lice sta­tions, so he has ex­pe­ri­ence in this re­gard, but he is most­ly known for his work in the Spe­cial Branch.”

The Spe­cial Branch is an elite unit tasked with high-pro­file crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the pro­tec­tion of high-pro­file of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

How­ev­er, one se­nior of­fi­cer not­ed that much more than Spe­cial Branch ex­pe­ri­ence was need­ed to lead the po­lice ser­vice, as he ques­tioned Gue­var­ro’s man­age­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

“There are things like op­er­a­tions, ad­min­is­tra­tive du­ties, co-or­di­nat­ing re­sources and so on that de­mands a clear un­der­stand­ing. This isn’t to take away from his ex­pe­ri­ence, but how much of this is he fa­mil­iar with? The TTPS is much big­ger than a sin­gle unit,” the source said.

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dau­rius Figuera not­ed that Gue­var­ro’s large­ly un­known back­ground may be a dis­ad­van­tage to his chances of be­ing ap­point­ed to the role.

Figuera said the skills gained from his time in the Spe­cial Branch may be bet­ter put to use in the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), this coun­try’s main in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing unit, but ques­tioned whether it would be best to lead the TTPS.

“What the man­date of those in Spe­cial Branch is, is en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent from the re­main­ing struc­ture of the TTPS. So, the ques­tion that aris­es is what is his ac­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence in com­mand­ing and con­trol to run the TTPS?” Figuera said.

“We know Mr Mys­tar has that ex­pe­ri­ence, but Mr Gue­var­ro is an un­known en­ti­ty and hail­ing from the Spe­cial Branch, he has ex­pe­ri­ence that suits him for the SSA. But the is­sue is com­mand and con­trol of the en­tire base of the TTPS is dif­fer­ent than do­ing so for the Spe­cial Branch.”

How­ev­er, Po­lice So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion vice pres­i­dent, act­ing ASP Ish­mael Pitt, said he trust­ed the de­ci­sion of the PolSC, not­ing that they would be privy to Gue­var­ro’s work record and pro­fi­cien­cy as a leader, in­for­ma­tion the pub­lic may not be aware of.

He said while Gue­var­ro may not be the most well-known can­di­date for the CoP role, that did not di­min­ish his abil­i­ties.

“Some­times, giv­en our course of du­ty or our task­ing, peo­ple may not al­ways be ex­posed to oth­er mem­bers of the po­lice ser­vice or even the pub­lic. But those who are the de­ci­sion-mak­ers to de­ter­mine who­ev­er they think is the best fit, we trust they will get it right. That’s up to the de­ci­sion-mak­ers if he’s the best fit for the role... I can’t say,” Pitt said.

He added that he did not want to com­ment too much on the mat­ter, but would wait to see the next course of ac­tion.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Mys­tar on his nom­i­na­tion to act as DCP, but he de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter.

Mean­while, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said he was con­fi­dent in the PolSC’s abil­i­ty to con­duct the se­lec­tion process with fair­ness and trans­paren­cy in mind.

“We can on­ly hope fair­ness and trans­paren­cy was done by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and we wait to see how it un­folds,” he said.

Ben­jamin ready to
work with new CoP

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said he will work with who­ev­er is se­lect­ed.

Hav­ing oc­cu­pied the post of CoP since Feb­ru­ary 6, he said, “When­ev­er you sit in a po­si­tion of lead­er­ship, it is so im­por­tant to un­der­stand the big pic­ture, which is nev­er about you. It is about the or­gan­i­sa­tion and I think we need to have a sit­ting CoP of sub­stan­tive rank.”

He added, “We had a fan­tas­tic process in terms of that which what was done. It was a very com­pre­hen­sive one and he came out on top and on be­half of the TTPS, I want to con­grat­u­late him. I wish him all the best.”

De­spite this, Ben­jamin said they would all wait to see what the fi­nal out­come would be.

Set to re­vert to his sub­stan­tive post as DCP if re­placed as CoP, Ben­jamin said it would be as God wills it. (With re­port­ing by An­na-Lisa Paul)