Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has fi­nal­ly spo­ken about her fail­ure to de­liv­er on her promise to re­duce the coun­try’s spi­ral­ing homi­cide rate by June.

When she ap­peared be­fore Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty weeks af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed the coun­try’s first fe­male com­mis­sion­er in Feb­ru­ary, Hare­wood-Christo­pher sought to al­lay fears that this year’s an­nu­al count would ex­ceed the 600 mur­ders record­ed last year.

She had said then: “We’d ex­pect to see a change in the mur­der rate short-term by June, and long-term by De­cem­ber.”

How­ev­er, in a 16-minute record­ed state­ment re­leased by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit on Fri­day night, Hare­wood-Christo­pher sought to jus­ti­fy the am­bi­tious tar­get she set her­self that did not ma­te­ri­alise.

“I re­mem­ber the as­sur­ances I made to the pub­lic and while some would have said they came from a place of overex­u­ber­ance from me, it came from my de­sire to ef­fect change and from my con­fi­dence that the TTPS has the ca­pac­i­ty to achieve its vi­sion to make every place in Trinidad and To­ba­go safe,”she said.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher ad­mit­ted that she had been ap­proached by the me­dia to ad­dress the is­sue af­ter the mur­der count re­cent­ly crossed the 300 mark, but said she de­clined un­til she felt it was ap­pro­pri­ate to ad­dress the pub­lic.

“Ear­li­er this week, the mur­der toll reached 300 and our na­tion­al con­scious­ness was jolt­ed as we reached this dread­ed mile­stone, and in a sense, we all share the col­lec­tive dis­ap­point­ment that this is how vi­o­lent our so­ci­ety has be­come,” she said.

How­ev­er, she sought to re­ject crit­i­cism based on the un­ful­filled promise.

“While I re­spect the right of in­di­vid­u­als to ex­press var­i­ous views and com­ments on is­sues al­beit the views may of­ten em­anate from a place of de­spair, anx­i­ety, and gen­uine con­cern, even some­times raw emo­tion, and un­der­stand­ably so, there must be an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the fact that there is a lot the po­lice do and knows that would be im­pru­dent and im­prac­ti­cal for the po­lice to dis­close,” she said.

“That void how­ev­er should not be filled with un­in­formed and of­ten un­war­rant­ed crit­i­cal views,” she added.

She ad­mit­ted that the 286 mur­ders record­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary and June, in­clud­ing 23 dou­ble mur­ders and four triple mur­ders, rep­re­sent­ed the high­est record­ed for the first six months of the year with the sec­ond high­est be­ing 278 in 2018 fol­lowed by 259 last year. The av­er­age for the pe­ri­od over the past decade was 257.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said gang ac­tiv­i­ty is the great­est con­trib­u­tor to the homi­cides fol­lowed by drug ac­tiv­i­ty with il­le­gal firearms the pre­ferred weapon to com­mit these of­fences.

She not­ed that more than 50 per cent of the mur­der were com­mit­ted in the area cov­ered by the Re­gion Two Homi­cide Bu­reau, which is re­spon­si­ble for most of north­ern and east­ern Trinidad. For the year, 51 mur­ders were solved with 47 per­sons be­ing charged by homi­cide de­tec­tives. Thir­ty-one of those solved mur­ders oc­curred this year.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said al­though she and her ex­ec­u­tive team im­ple­ment­ed a se­ries of ini­tia­tives al­most im­me­di­ate­ly up­on her as­sum­ing of­fice, their ef­forts were ham­pered by nu­mer­ous fac­tors out­side their con­trol.

“We are see­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty in the gang net­works, ri­val­ry among in­di­vid­ual gangs, and al­liances be­ing formed be­tween break-away groups re­sult­ing in fights for turf,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher said.

“We ob­serve the prac­tice of re­peat of­fend­ers shar­ing their ex­pe­ri­ence with their peers and work­ing to em­pow­er per­pe­tra­tors to in­hib­it the prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion of crimes,” she added.

She al­so not­ed that the re­luc­tance of wit­ness­es of crime to co­op­er­ate with in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­tin­ued to pose a chal­lenge.

“De­spite the avail­abil­i­ty of tech­no­log­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence, the un­avail­abil­i­ty of the hu­man con­text se­vere­ly con­strains the work of in­ves­ti­ga­tors,” she said. “Wit­ness­es are afraid to come for­ward and pro­vide the re­quired in­for­ma­tion.”

She al­so point­ed to a de­crease in con­fes­sions from those ac­cused of vi­o­lent crimes.

“The hard­ened mod­ern crim­i­nal cul­ture does not en­cour­age of­fend­ers to ac­count to their con­science re­sult­ing in a sit­u­a­tion where there are less con­fes­sions com­ing out of in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” she said.

Stat­ing that in­no­v­a­tive and un­prece­dent­ed leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tions were re­quired to deal with firearm pos­ses­sion and vi­o­lence crime, Hare­wood-Christo­pher sug­gest­ed that per­sons ac­cused of such crimes should be man­dat­ed to wear elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing de­vices when re­leased on bail.

She al­so main­tained that she is com­mit­ted to com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing the TTPS’s Com­mu­ni­ty Jus­tice Clin­ic, which be­gan as a pi­lot project be­fore be­ing im­ple­ment­ed across all ten polic­ing di­vi­sions.

“Per­haps these ini­tia­tives may not res­onate with all cit­i­zens as any mea­sure of suc­cess but be as­sured that the old adage that pre­ven­tion is bet­ter than cure can,” she said.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher al­so promised to im­prove pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS.

“I com­mit to con­tin­ue to ad­dress the is­sue of in­dis­ci­pline in the rank and file and en­sure that of­fi­cers re­spond with a high stan­dard of ser­vice, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, re­spect, in­tegri­ty, dig­ni­ty, and ex­cel­lence,” she said.

“The TTPS can­not do it alone. I con­tin­ue to urge all con­cerned cit­i­zens to con­sid­er that the un­ac­cept­ably high lev­el of delin­quen­cy and law­less­ness in our coun­try that is fu­elling vi­o­lent crime re­quires all of us to make an in­ter­ven­tion,” she added.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to high­light some progress in crime fight­ing made by the TTPS dur­ing her brief tenure. She not­ed that an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives over the past six months re­sult­ed in the seizure of 375 il­le­gal firearms com­pared to 356 for the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year.

The TTPS seized 9,264 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion, 427 ki­los of mar­i­jua­na, and 178 ki­los of co­caine dur­ing the pe­ri­od and 625 per­sons were ar­rest­ed for firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion, while 651 were de­tained for house­break­ing, lar­ce­ny, and rob­bery of­fences.

“As Com­mis­sion­er, I ap­pre­ci­ate that de­spite the suc­cess­es of the TTPS in oth­er ar­eas of polic­ing, it is the mur­der toll that most con­cerns the cit­i­zen­ry and caus­es their great­est anx­i­ety and grief and it is for this rea­son it car­ries the most weight in my score­card and that of every sin­gle po­lice of­fi­cer,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher said.

She promised more ini­tia­tives from the TTPS in the next few months.

“You would see us build­ing on our suc­cess­es . . . We will per­sist in our work to get the re­sults we de­sire and the coun­try is de­mand­ing of us,” she said.

She al­so sent to a mes­sage to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments about the TTPS’s “ze­ro-tol­er­ance” ap­proach go­ing for­ward.

“I al­so ap­peal to the per­pe­tra­tors of crime, the sup­port­ers of crime, and those who ben­e­fit from crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, to de­sist. Now is a good time to with­draw from crim­i­nal­i­ty. You are guar­an­teed to fail once you are con­front­ed by the po­lice,” she said.