An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Stand­ing in the au­di­to­ri­um of his son’s school sur­round­ed by chat­ter­ing young­sters, Kert­nell James was tak­en aback when the old­er of his two sons told him: “I want to be just like you, Dad­dy!”

They were words of en­cour­age­ment for the 36-year-old San­gre Grande res­i­dent who had long con­sid­ered him­self a jack of all trades and mas­ter of noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar.

Next month, the fa­ther of two, who is cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing train­ing at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my in St James, will be among the lat­est batch of re­cruits due to pass out. He said his quest to be a pos­i­tive role mod­el for his sons is what led him to seek en­try in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

James was nev­er aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in­clined and left San­gre Grande Ju­nior Sec­ondary School with­out any pass­es. How­ev­er, he was able to get work eas­i­ly, whether it was elec­tri­cal, tiling, cook­ing or dec­o­rat­ing.

He launched a food busi­ness dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and it was his main source of in­come un­til one year ago.

“My son had a ca­reer day at school and he was very in­de­ci­sive as to what he want­ed to be,” James said.

“I told him, you don’t want to be a po­lice and he said, ‘No, I don’t want to be no po­lice be­cause I want to be like you ... how you does cook and dec­o­rate’.”

When he tried to en­cour­age his son to con­sid­er a ca­reer as a po­lice­man, the young­ster stunned him when he asked: “How come if you could be all them things in the Po­lice Ser­vice, why you not in the Po­lice Ser­vice?”

He tried to ex­plain that he did not have the req­ui­site aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions but was floored by his son’s next ques­tion: “But I go­ing to school so why you can’t go back to school to be­come a po­lice?”

Mo­ti­vat­ed by the in­no­cence and sim­plic­i­ty of his son’s com­ments, James re­turned to school at age 33.

He at­tained pass­es in Eng­lish, Prin­ci­ples of Busi­ness, Hu­man & So­cial Bi­ol­o­gy, So­cial Stud­ies and EDPM (Elec­tron­ic Doc­u­ment Prepa­ra­tion and Man­age­ment) and be­gan to look out for the next call for po­lice re­cruits.

“Things were mov­ing very slow­ly and by the time I turned 35 which is the dead­line, I felt that was it but the uni­verse had a plan for me,” James re­called.

“Two days be­fore I turned 36, it was sup­posed to be a Wednes­day…I was go­ing in­to Port-of-Spain to do some busi­ness on the Mon­day and I got a call from the Po­lice Acad­e­my. I had al­ready done a few things but still had to do the phys­i­cal and the psy­cho­me­t­ric tests.”

He thought it would have been im­pos­si­ble to get it all done in two days be­fore his birth­day.

“Once I turned 36, that would have been it,” he said.

James com­plet­ed the in­ter­view and signed his con­tract with hours to go be­fore the clock struck mid­night on his birth­day, Oc­to­ber 17, 2024.

“My kids were ex­treme­ly proud of me. They couldn’t re­al­ly un­der­stand me get­ting my sub­jects but be­ing draft­ed in­to the Po­lice Ser­vice, that was a huge thing for them,” he said.

They are now boast­ing that their dad “is a po­lice and he could cook,” he added.

James is now ea­ger­ly look­ing for­ward to get­ting in­to a uni­form and be­ing as­signed to a sta­tion so he can be­gin to make a “re­al im­pact.”

“My goal now is to be the best of­fi­cer I can be,” he said.

His oth­er goal is to get to reach the high­est po­si­tion in the TTPS, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

“I am go­ing to chal­lenge my­self,” he de­clared.

James, who said he had to over­come the fear of fail­ure and dis­ap­point­ing his loved ones to get where he is to­day, cred­it­ed his moth­er Phyl­lis James and fi­ancée Mari­ah for en­cour­ag­ing and sup­port­ing him.

His ad­vice to oth­ers who want to turn their lives around is: “Be­lieve in your­self.”

“Your out­come isn’t de­ter­mined by how you start. Don’t count your­self out. It is nev­er too late to turn over a new leaf and en­joy a fresh start.”