Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress whip David Lee is call­ing for manda­to­ry body cam­eras for all mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

“Twen­ty-two cit­i­zens who were alive on the day the Prime Min­is­ter left T&T are now mur­dered. An ad­di­tion­al six were killed by po­lice. Our mur­der rate now stands at 410 (com­pared to 265 this time last year) on track for this year record­ing the most mur­ders in our his­to­ry,” Charles said at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

“UNC is call­ing for im­me­di­ate manda­to­ry use of body cam­eras for all 10,000 po­lice of­fi­cers - at least those thou­sands in front­line op­er­a­tions.”

Claim­ing there are on­ly 1,600 body cam­eras avail­able for use by of­fi­cers, Charles added, “Body cams will pro­vide ir­refutable vi­su­al ev­i­dence con­cern­ing cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing any shoot­ings by po­lice. It en­sures all in­ter­ac­tions be­tween cit­i­zens and the TTPS are record­ed ... and can pro­vide need­ed as­sur­ance that all po­lice shoot­ings con­formed to law and were nec­es­sary ... To ab­solve good po­lice­men and women from be­ing tar­nished by a broad brush of crim­i­nal­i­ty, use of body cams must be made manda­to­ry.”

Charles said the T&T Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­SWA) must en­sure of­fi­cers are pro­tect­ed by call­ing for body cams for all front­line of­fi­cers.

“If TTP­SWA don’t in­sist, then they’re ab­di­cat­ing their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to of­fi­cers who op­er­ate with­in the law and wish the world to know.

He added, “Our Chief Jus­tice should al­so be ashamed that the whole world knows that the in­sti­tu­tion over which he pre­sides is best known for its sloth, in­com­pe­tence, slow­ness and in­do­lence. Like Row­ley, he too racks up fre­quent fly­er miles.”

Charles said a UNC gov­ern­ment will try to en­sure body cams for all front­line of­fi­cers and have 24/7 CCTV cov­er­age in hotspot ar­eas, in­clud­ing Tu­na­puna and Aripo.

A Sun­day Guardian ex­clu­sive yes­ter­day high­light­ed the fact that Tu­na­puna was now con­sid­ered a crime hotspot by the TTPS, fol­low­ing a pro­lif­er­a­tion fof gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

UNC will al­so re-ex­am­ine the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and em­pow­er it along the lines of the Spe­cial In­ves­tiga­tive Unit.

Charles, who claimed the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) was a “spy agency,” ques­tioned its con­tri­bu­tion to fight­ing crime and said a UNC gov­ern­ment would cut SSA’s $353 mil­lion fund­ing by $100m. The mon­ey would go to crime pre­ven­tion/re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

“We’re call­ing for an ur­gent per­for­mance au­dit on the SSA,” he said.

Charles “bouffed” the “One Per­centers” and swing vot­ers, ac­cus­ing the lat­ter of be­ing re­spon­si­ble for vot­ing in the PNM. He said they have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to “save us.”