KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

From the shad­ow of be­ing ar­rest­ed and charged with as­sault, ASP Roger Alexan­der shook off a dark era in his life to of­fi­cial­ly re­ceive the Key to the Bor­ough of Point Fortin yes­ter­day.

“While things may not be per­fect, don’t come back bit­ter, come back bet­ter,” Alexan­der told Guardian Me­dia at the awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Point Fortin Town Hall.

The po­lice of­fi­cer with 26 years ser­vice was con­sid­ered as one of the Bor­ough’s greats along­side so­ca star Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Paul Lea­cock.

Alexan­der, who is cur­rent­ly in charge of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force has a his­to­ry of deal­ing with the hard­est of crim­i­nals and has been a staunch de­fend­er of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing the key from Point Fortin May­or Ab­don Ma­son, Alexan­der said he wished he could have brought all of his col­leagues, from Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith to the newest re­cruit to the cer­e­mo­ny.

He said that it was on­ly through the Po­lice Ser­vice that he achieved his suc­cess. He said there were times when he spoke with his peers be­fore cross­ing en­e­my lines to try to re­form crim­i­nals. A daunt­ing task, but “when you come from Point Fortin, there is noth­ing as giv­ing up or re­treat.”

Send­ing a mes­sage to the youths, Alexan­der said that no stone was unim­por­tant in con­struct­ing their lives as the key was find­ing the right spot to put the stone so that it fits in­to their life de­sign.

Alexan­der and his col­league Cpl Shel­don Mires were charged with as­sault­ing Christo­pher Charles with in­tent to cause ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm back in 2016. But the case col­lapsed in March, with the pros­e­cu­tion’s in­abil­i­ty to lo­cate their civil­ian wit­ness­es.

The fall from grace saw Alexan­der be­ing sus­pend­ed and his re­moval as the co-host of the Be­yond the Tape pro­gramme on TV6. His charges were dis­missed and he got the full back­ing from Grif­fith to re­sume work. Just yes­ter­day, Alexan­der was in­volved in a po­lice ex­er­cise that saw the ar­rest of sev­er­al sus­pect­ed crim­i­nals be­fore meet­ing his moth­er at the Town Hall au­di­to­ri­um.

Lyons-Al­varez, is a for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch and Road March win­ner and has per­formed in sev­er­al for­eign coun­tries. De­spite her achieve­ments, the recog­ni­tion from the home­town left her a bit emo­tion­al.

With her hus­band Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez record­ing her ac­cep­tance speech, she used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to shout out her fel­low Point Fortin women, say­ing that while they may be mis­un­der­stood, their out­spo­ken at­ti­tude was a virtue.

“Plen­ty of peo­ple won’t un­der­stand that it is not just the award of the key that is im­por­tant to me. It is the fact that it is com­ing from home, where I start­ed my ca­reer. I’ve got­ten nu­mer­ous awards from nu­mer­ous places, but noth­ing feels bet­ter than com­ing home, dri­ving the fa­mil­iar streets that you drove up and down for band re­hearsals and go­ing to venues to per­form and start your ca­reer. See­ing the peo­ple that sup­port­ed you from young, still sup­port­ing you. 

“I’ve gone to thou­sands of dif­fer­ent places to per­form and I can safe­ly say that every sin­gle spot that I have been to, Point Fortin has been there al­so. It is im­pos­si­ble for Fay-Ann Lyons to go some­where and not take that Point Fortin men­tal­i­ty.” Lyons-Al­varez said.

The coun­cil of the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and the May­or’s staff was al­so re­ward­ed.