CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says the pub­lic is now en­gag­ing in some­thing he calls re­verse dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said this prac­tice is be­ing used to pres­sure the po­lice ser­vice to act out­side of the law.

“This coun­try has reached the point where we are reach­ing the point of re­verse dis­crim­i­na­tion. This con­cept that we keep speak­ing about with the one per cent, there was no one per cent there. We are so des­per­ate with this stu­pid line about this one per cent. This coun­try is go­ing in­to a se­ri­ous sink and de­pres­sion if we con­tin­ue with this re­verse dis­crim­i­na­tion,” Grif­fith said in ref­er­ence to the use of the term to re­fer to the Syr­i­an sec­tor of the so­ci­ety.

Over the past week, there has been a na­tion­al de­bate on whether the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice should have tak­en stern­er ac­tion against per­sons who were hav­ing a pool par­ty at the up­scale Bay­side Tow­ers in Co­corite in breach of the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions on so­cial gath­er­ings.

Even Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley chas­tised the po­lice ser­vice for their fail­ure to charge any­one in­volved. He fur­ther in­struct­ed that the TTPS should up­hold the law against any­one found in breach of COVID reg­u­la­tions re­gard­less of race, class or so­cial stand­ing.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith has main­tained his of­fi­cers can­not and will not breach the law by ar­rest­ing peo­ple on pri­vate prop­er­ty when the health reg­u­la­tions do not al­low this.

In seek­ing to fur­ther clar­i­fy what took place when of­fi­cers went to Bay­side Tow­ers, Grif­fith yes­ter­day said the pho­to mak­ing rounds on so­cial me­dia with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 peo­ple is not what they met. He said the po­lice met about six peo­ple scat­tered around a pool when they ar­rived on the scene. He said the po­lice used moral sua­sion, which it has al­so been do­ing in all oth­er sim­i­lar in­stances.

Grif­fith said the on­ly time charges were laid against any­one on pri­vate prop­er­ty was dur­ing a par­ty at a res­i­dence in Val­sayn, be­cause on that oc­ca­sion the home was rent­ed out for a par­ty and the po­lice ob­tained in­for­ma­tion and a war­rant.

He said the po­lice po­si­tion on the law re­mains the same and this was ac­knowl­edged by the Prime Min­is­ter, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young dur­ing a meet­ing on Mon­day.

“The prime min­is­ter and I, we met, it was a very am­i­ca­ble meet­ing and we all agreed that ex­act­ly what I said from the start is ac­cu­rate.”

He in­sist­ed, how­ev­er, that he and the Gov­ern­ment are now on the “same page” in the fight against COVID-19. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that the per­cep­tion of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the work of the po­lice is trou­bling.

Grif­fith said as com­mis­sion­er, he will con­tin­ue to do his job with­out any in­ter­fer­ence and will not be “bul­lied” in­to do­ing any­thing that is il­le­gal.

“I don’t need a wuk (sic),” he said.

He al­so sought to clear the air on re­ports that he has been asked to at­tend a meet­ing by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) as a re­sult of this on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion.

“Again bac­cha­nal and pro­pa­gan­da, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has not called me to a meet­ing.”

He said what was re­port­ed in a dai­ly news­pa­per was in­for­ma­tion re­ceived from a pre­vi­ous mem­ber of the PSC.

“Those mem­bers do not have a moral au­thor­i­ty to speak,” he added.

As it re­lates to home­less peo­ple in San Fer­nan­do be­ing tick­et­ed for not wear­ing masks over the week­end, Grif­fith said his in­for­ma­tion was that sev­er­al of the peo­ple who were fined had ac­tu­al ad­dress­es and ac­cess to mon­ey. How­ev­er, he said there may have been a short­com­ing on the part of the of­fi­cers and he will go to court to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion for any­one who is ac­tu­al­ly home­less and was fined.

He said the po­lice now have to be aware that some peo­ple may claim home­less­ness to get away from be­ing tick­et­ed for not wear­ing masks in pub­lic. He dis­closed that as at Sun­day, the num­ber of peo­ple fined for not wear­ing masks stood at 259.