Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

A for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has de­scribed the ar­rest of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher as a bomb­shell event that war­rants swift ac­tion from the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice yes­ter­day re­vealed the ar­rest is in con­nec­tion with an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles that were bound for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran ex­plained that the re­cent de­vel­op­ment was not un­prece­dent­ed as for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Ran­dolph Bur­roughs had been ar­rest­ed and charged. De­osaran not­ed that the de­ten­tion of Hare­wood-Christo­pher has added wor­ry to an al­ready un­easy pop­u­la­tion over the coun­try’s crime prob­lem and the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

“It is a bomb­shell event, a fire­crack­er event that has caused great dis­tur­bance at a time when res­i­dents feel un­safe and they re­ly heav­i­ly on the ef­fec­tive­ness and pro­fes­sion­al in­tegri­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers head­ed by a com­pe­tent po­lice com­mis­sion­er. So ar­rest­ing the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er at this time re­al­ly could not come at a worse time for the Gov­ern­ment, Po­lice Ser­vice and for the pub­lic.” 

The for­mer PSC chair­man said while due process must be fol­lowed in the probe in­volv­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher, the ex­ec­u­tive of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) must act with haste to steady the TTPS.

“I think this can cause sev­er­al down­stream ef­fects, it will like­ly desta­bilise the Po­lice Ser­vice to some ef­fect and we ex­pect the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to act quick­ly in one way or the oth­er in in­stalling an act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er. There should not be any de­lay in bring­ing quick rem­e­dy in any way to the Po­lice Ser­vice func­tion.”

He ex­plained that the PolSC holds the au­thor­i­ty to re­voke the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s ap­point­ment and ini­ti­ate the process of se­lect­ing a new one. To do so, De­osaran said, the PolSC can sub­mit a for­mal re­quest to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo ask­ing for the re­vo­ca­tion of the cur­rent ap­point­ment, ac­com­pa­nied by a mer­it list and a rec­om­men­da­tion for a new act­ing com­mis­sion­er. The nom­i­nat­ed in­di­vid­ual must then be pre­sent­ed to Par­lia­ment for de­bate and ap­proval.

Guardian Me­dia sent sev­er­al ques­tions to PolSC chair­man Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace about what ac­tions will be tak­en giv­en the re­cent de­vel­op­ments, how­ev­er, there was no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day evening.

For­mer com­mis­sion mem­ber and at­tor­ney, Mar­tin George al­so stressed that the PolSC can­not turn a blind eye to un­fold­ing events which has pushed the top cop’s of­fice in­to dis­re­pute.

“If it means to have the com­mis­sion­er put on ad­min­is­tra­tion leave and some­one ap­point­ed to act in the po­si­tion of com­mis­sion­er then they need to do so swift­ly and de­ci­sive­ly and we need to have it com­mu­ni­cat­ed clear­ly and un­equiv­o­cal­ly to the pub­lic.”

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, George ad­vised that a cau­tious ap­proach be tak­en in treat­ing the mat­ter.

“We al­ways have to re­mem­ber that we have to be mind­ful that the Com­mis­sion­er is en­ti­tled to the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence, that is her con­sti­tu­tion­al right and she is al­so en­ti­tled to due process so we don’t want to rush to judge­ment in the sce­nario. How­ev­er, it is not the type of cir­cum­stance that should be al­lowed to fes­ter for long with­out de­ci­sive ac­tion be­ing tak­en.” 

Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Pas­tor, Clive Dot­tin, who al­so served as a mem­ber of the PolSC from 2006 and 2009 called for an in­de­pen­dent for­eign in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the im­por­ta­tion of the ri­fles for the SSA which has al­so led to the de­ten­tion of for­mer di­rec­tor of the agency Re­tired Ma­jor Roger Best.

“Let me tell you straight, when I heard about her ar­rest I was dev­as­tat­ed. All I am ask­ing for, I don’t think the po­lice should be in­ves­ti­gat­ing the po­lice. I think this re­quires for­eign com­mis­sion­ers to in­ves­ti­gate this and they must be al­lowed to do their work with in­de­pen­dence and courage. This is a very se­ri­ous thing.”