An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has made good on his promise to be­gin re­view­ing Firearm Users Li­cence (FUL) ap­pli­ca­tions, hav­ing com­plet­ed the first batch of files which had been piled atop his desk at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

In re­turn­ing them to the Firearms Per­mit Unit (FPU) for prompt dis­patch yes­ter­day, he said it was keep­ing in line with his promise to en­sure fair­ness, trans­paren­cy and ef­fi­cien­cy in the ap­pli­ca­tion process. Reaf­firm­ing his com­mit­ment to stream­lin­ing the firearm li­cens­ing process and elim­i­nat­ing un­nec­es­sary bot­tle­necks, the top cop in­sist­ed all fu­ture sub­mis­sions sent to his of­fice will be ad­dressed ex­pe­di­tious­ly.

Say­ing he was await­ing the next batch of files for re­view as part of the con­tin­ued push for pro­ce­dur­al clar­i­ty and pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty, the CoP al­so di­rect­ed that no sup­port­ing doc­u­ments were to be sub­mit­ted di­rect­ly to the FPU.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro ad­vised ap­pli­cants to await di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion from their re­spec­tive sta­tion dis­tricts. He added that on­ly new ap­pli­ca­tions would be ac­cept­ed at the FPU – and that any oth­er doc­u­ments must fol­low the re­vised chan­nel of sub­mis­sion.

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Gue­var­ro was un­able to say how many FUL ap­pli­ca­tions had been re­ceived be­tween Jan­u­ary to the present.

Last week, Gue­var­ro an­nounced that se­lect off-du­ty per­son­nel, in­clud­ing front­line, tac­ti­cal and op­er­a­tional of­fi­cers, will be al­lowed car­ry their firearms home, as part of a new pol­i­cy di­rec­tive aimed at en­sur­ing the safe­ty of of­fi­cers and en­hanc­ing the op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

He said it was im­por­tant that front­line of­fi­cers “feel that sense of pro­tec­tion.”

“Just as I want to give mem­bers of the pub­lic that op­por­tu­ni­ty to pos­sess a firearm, like­wise, I don’t want my of­fi­cers to be go­ing home with­out that sense of pro­tec­tion for them­selves,” he said then.

Gue­var­ro has called for an au­dit of all idle and ser­vice­able weapons with­in the TTPS’s ar­moury, which can be dis­trib­uted to off-du­ty of­fi­cers.

More co-op­er­a­tion among units

Al­so high on his list is build­ing on the syn­er­gies that ex­ist be­tween po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP), Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice of­fi­cers and civil­ian staff.

He said SRPs had spe­cif­ic is­sues in terms of polic­ing and how they were viewed and treat­ed by the TTPS; and as­sured, “Un­der my tenure, I want to treat them all with the same equal­i­ty that reg­u­lar po­lice of­fi­cers are treat­ed with.”

Say­ing this was cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing their at­ten­tion and it was an is­sue he ful­ly sup­port­ed, he said, “I am try­ing to push for it, which is the ab­sorp­tion of SRPs in­to the reg­u­lar fold.”

The strength of the TTPS cur­rent­ly stands at 7,884 of­fi­cers, whilst its op­er­a­tional strength is be­tween 5,600 and 5,700 of­fi­cers.

Re­gard­ing the short­fall in hu­man re­sources, Gue­var­ro said a man­date by the last gov­ern­ment had been hand­ed to the pre­vi­ous CoP to em­ploy 1,000 of­fi­cers, which is cur­rent­ly on­go­ing.

Af­ter these prospec­tive of­fi­cers grad­u­ate the fo­cus will be on the ab­sorp­tion of SRPs. Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the pro­cure­ment of equip­ment for of­fi­cers, such as bul­let­proof vests, which cur­rent­ly stands at 4,000 on or­der; while body-cam­eras on or­der stands around 3,000 – Gue­var­ro ex­plained, “The mo­ti­va­tion of staff for me is en­sur­ing that uni­ty.”

He promised the pub­lic a dif­fer­ent type of lead­er­ship that “in­tends to in­spire oth­ers in­to a fu­tur­is­tic state for a new TTPS.”

Asked if he in­tends to move in­to the CoP’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence at the Po­lice Acad­e­my, St James, Gue­var­ro said it was some­thing he was “con­sid­er­ing.”

“At present, there are re­pairs go­ing on there. I met it in train, so it is not hab­it­able at this point in time.” On the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, he said the probe will be above board.

“I have no fear this in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be a fair one. I have no fear that at the end of day, what­ev­er the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the TTPS will be able to hold its head up high and say yes, we con­tin­ue to be an or­gan­i­sa­tion that can po­lice it­self. We con­tin­ue to lead from the front.”