Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith strong­ly con­demned the re­cent mur­ders of po­lice of­fi­cers as “cow­ard­ly acts” and has promised that the Po­lice Ser­vice will re­lent­less­ly pur­sue those re­spon­si­ble.

“It has been ob­served that over the last weeks there have been dead­ly and vi­o­lent firearm at­tacks against the po­lice…The TTPS re­mains res­olute and unit­ed with its law en­force­ment coun­ter­parts to re­duce this un­ac­cept­able lev­el of vi­o­lence and en­sure that all per­pe­tra­tors will be pros­e­cut­ed,” Grif­fith said in a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

Grif­fith made the state­ment in light of the mur­der of po­lice sergeant Roger Williams, who was killed along with ven­dor Na­toya Chris­t­ian, 37, of Laven­tille dur­ing a shoot­ing on Char­lotte Street in Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day evening. Williams’ Sig Sauer pis­tol loaded with 14 rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion was re­cov­ered by a mem­ber of the pub­lic, se­cured and hand­ed over to the se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, who ar­rived at the scene that evening.

Mean­while, Williams’ col­leagues are said to be shocked and very dis­traught over his death.

They strong­ly be­lieve that giv­en a chance Williams would have drawn his weapon and “killed the gun­man.”

Ac­cord­ing to his col­leagues, Williams was a ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cer and “well trained, ex­pe­ri­enced and alert. Williams, who was a pros­e­cu­tor at the Port-of-Spain 6th Mag­is­trates’ Court, was fond­ly called “Willie” by many.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly he had no time to draw his gun oth­er­wise the on­ly death would have been the gun­man but from what we were told, is that his back was turned to the di­rec­tion of the gun­man…we have lost a good of­fi­cer…one who took his job very se­ri­ous­ly on and off du­ty,” Williams’ col­league said, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied.

An­oth­er of­fi­cer de­scribed him as a “big broth­er.”

“He was al­ways hum­ble and gave great guid­ance.”

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 7 pm on Sat­ur­day, two men were seen walk­ing along Char­lotte Street when they opened fire on a group of peo­ple.

Chris­t­ian and Williams and two oth­ers—Elvon Gild­ings, 28, of Laven­tille and a 46-year-old fe­male ven­dor from Dil­lon Street, Diego Mar­tin, were shot. Chris­t­ian died on the scene while Williams died while un­der­go­ing treat­ment at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Gild­ings, a ven­dor, re­mained ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal while the fourth vic­tim was treat­ed and dis­charged.

Grif­fith along with the ex­ec­u­tive of the TTPS ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Williams’ fam­i­ly, col­leagues, and friends.