Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

More than sim­ply pro­vid­ing a pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties with height­ened num­bers and vis­i­bil­i­ty, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der is call­ing on new­ly mint­ed po­lice of­fi­cers to up­hold the prin­ci­ples of the TTPS by serv­ing their com­mu­ni­ties with re­spect and dig­ni­ty.

Alexan­der made the re­marks dur­ing a pass­ing out pa­rade and cer­e­mo­ny for the re­cruits of Batch 1 of 2025 at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my, St James, on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

He com­mend­ed the re­cruits, not­ing that they were en­ter­ing their law en­force­ment ca­reer at a time when the coun­try’s crime sta­tis­tics were gen­er­al­ly trend­ing down­wards, but stressed that they could not af­ford to be­come com­pla­cent as crime would chal­lenge the ca­pac­i­ties of the TTPS.

Alexan­der, there­fore, urged the new of­fi­cers to stay true to the ethics of the TTPS, while re­mind­ing them of the ex­pec­ta­tions of the na­tion dur­ing this new chap­ter of their lives.

“Let me speak open­ly, the coun­try does not need more po­lice of­fi­cers... they need good po­lice of­fi­cers.

“Po­lice of­fi­cers who chose in­tegri­ty over temp­ta­tion, dis­ci­pline over ego, ser­vice over short-cuts.

“If you want re­spect earn it, if you want trust build it and if you want ho­n­our live it.

“Every de­ci­sion you make big or small shapes the rep­u­ta­tion of the TTPS, car­ry your­self with pride, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and hu­mil­i­ty.”

Alexan­der not­ed that while the of­fi­cers would wield sig­nif­i­cant au­thor­i­ty in their com­mu­ni­ties, he im­plored them not to lose sight of com­pas­sion and hu­man­i­ty, by treat­ing peo­ple with re­spect even if they were on the op­po­site side of the law.

“Be the of­fi­cer who treats peo­ple with dig­ni­ty even when they’re in hand­cuffs, be the of­fi­cer who turns a fright­ened com­mu­ni­ty in­to a trust­ing one and be the of­fi­cer who helps move T&T from fear to safe­ty.”

He, how­ev­er, stressed that while his min­istry would con­tin­ue to work to­wards com­mu­ni­ty-based so­lu­tions to crime chal­lenges, there would be firm ef­forts to ad­dress vi­o­lent crim­i­nals.

“We will close the gap, we will give crim­i­nals nowhere to hide, nowhere to run and nowhere to breathe be­cause the glo­ry days are not be­hind us, they are in front of us.”

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro en­dorsed Alexan­der’s ad­dress.

When asked if he could add any­thing to the ad­dress, Gue­var­ro sim­ply re­mind­ed the of­fi­cers to “Pro­tect and serve with pride and ex­cel­lence.”

Gue­var­ro pleased

with in­crease in

mur­der de­tec­tion

As of yes­ter­day, there were 326 mur­ders com­pared to 553 for the same cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2024.

Com­ment­ing on the drop in mur­ders for the year thus far, Gue­var­ro said he was not on­ly pleased with the de­cline, but al­so the in­crease in the de­tec­tion rate.

He com­mend­ed the ef­forts of head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Snr Supt Sean Dhilpaul and oth­er of­fi­cers who he said were work­ing to treat with re­cent mur­ders and old­er crimes as well.

“If you would ob­serve that par­tic­u­lar­ly re­cent homi­cides, we are bring­ing a lot of clo­sure to them as well as homi­cides in re­cent years.

“Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tions are very com­plex in na­ture and some of them would drag on for years, so I’m sat­is­fied at this point in time that the of­fi­cers of the homi­cide bu­reau are do­ing yeo­man ser­vice with the re­sources that they have.”

When asked if mem­bers of the TTPS were in­volved in train­ing ex­er­cis­es be­tween the TT Reg­i­ment and the 22nd US Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit which be­gan on Sun­day, Gue­var­ro said he could not re­spond to such ques­tions as it would touch on mat­ters re­lat­ing to law en­force­ment strat­e­gy.

The pass­ing out cer­e­mo­ny not on­ly fea­tured the march­ing skills of the re­cruits as a demon­stra­tion from of­fi­cers of the elite tac­ti­cal unit, the Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPS) show­cased their tac­ti­cal skills, through a stim­u­lat­ed hostage sit­u­a­tion.

The of­fi­cers clad in dark grey cam­ou­flage, black hel­mets and body ar­mour, rapelled down the ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing of the Po­lice Acad­e­my draw­ing the cheers of spec­ta­tors, as they swept across the recre­ation field and en­gaged in close quar­ters com­bat with “crim­i­nals”, neu­tral­is­ing them with as­sis­tance from con­trolled ex­plo­sives and po­lice snipers who were con­cealed at the fur­thest point of the field wear­ing ghillie (cam­ou­flage) suits.