Commissioner of Police (CoP) Allister Guevarro has rejected claims of bias amid complaints by trade unions and activists that public demonstrations are being unfairly restricted using the State of Emergency (SoE)
The T&T Police Service has implemented restrictions on demonstrations and declared 15 no-protest zones throughout the country, including the Red House. Protesters are debarred from any activity within 500 metres of these locations. However, the decision has sparked uproar among several trade unions, who are now considering legal action over the decision.
In an interview with the media in Tobago yesterday, however, Guevarro denied police were biased towards protest demonstrations, but noted their priority was public safety.
“That is very far from the truth. I want to draw particular attention to the Joshua Samaroo protest. That protest actually had 15 or 16 protest demonstrations in front of police stations prior, but they were all held within the law and they were all held in the right way,” he said.
He said it was only when the demonstrations became adversarial and in contravention of the Emergency Powers Regulations that law enforcement intervened.
Asked what considerations are made by police in allowing a protest to take place, Guevarro said, “As it was bandied about in the public, you don’t really need permission to protest. What you do, you notify the Office of the CoP. In some cases, people have a sporadic protest, but there are means and ways in which you protest that could be offensive to the law, and that is what we are trying to prevent.”
In the latest case of a protest being affected by the policy, law enforcement officers swooped down on Piccadilly Street in Port-of-Spain on Wednesday afternoon, shutting down a planned peace walk before it even began.
Organisers said the march was intended to promote unity in East Port-of-Spain and put an end to gang violence.
However, police ordered the gathering to disperse and arrested a woman who clashed with a female police officer over their aggressive approach.
Other protesters have been arrested recently, including Alyssa Phillip, who recently organised a demonstration outside the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, following his decision to charge Kaia Sealy with manslaughter in the police-involved killing of her boyfriend Joshua Samaroo.
Yesterday, Guevarro argued that the heavy-handed approach by officers is only adopted when required.
Meanwhile, as the SoE is set to elapse on June 17, Guevarro said any decision on an extension is beyond his authority.
“That decision is not up to the T&T Police Service,” he said.
Nonetheless, he said the SoE has yielded positive results in all police divisions with “reductions in crime statistics in all major categories.”
On the spike in murders recently, Guevarro said police cannot be everywhere at once.
“These multiple homicide incidents, we are very hard-pressed to figure out, in terms of predicting where homicides come from. We wish we could be omnipresent everywhere and we wish we could predict where homicides are gonna occur, thus we will be able to put assets and resources to prevent them.”
