Gail Alexan­der

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, whose con­tract­ed term ends in Au­gust, will be among the can­di­dates to be con­sid­ered by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) when it be­gins the process to se­lect a Com­mis­sion­er for a new term.

Grif­fith is mak­ing him­self avail­able for a sec­ond term even though his three-year term, which start­ed in Au­gust 2018, has tak­en a toll on his health and fam­i­ly.

Le­gal no­tice 183, dat­ed last Thurs­day and signed by the sec­re­tary to Cab­i­net, con­firmed the PSC’s Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Se­lec­tion Process) Or­der 2021. This stat­ed the process for ap­point­ments to the of­fices of Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er.

When that process is com­plet­ed, the nom­i­nees list­ed by the PSC will be con­sid­ered by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

While Grif­fith isn’t com­ment­ing, sources very close to him con­firmed that he will be among the nom­i­nees for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

On Sep­tem­ber 10, 2016, Guardian Me­dia broke the sto­ry that Grif­fith was of­fer­ing him­self for the po­si­tion.

When the mat­ter went be­fore Par­lia­ment for de­bate in Ju­ly 2018, the Gov­ern­ment sup­port­ed Grif­fith’s nom­i­na­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley de­scribed him as an ex­em­plary can­di­date.

The Op­po­si­tion ab­stained. No­body vot­ed against.

Grif­fith is cred­it­ed with var­i­ous achieve­ments dur­ing his tenure, in­clud­ing a 30 per cent re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crimes in 2020 com­pared to 2019, the high­est per­cent­age re­duc­tion from one year to an­oth­er in more than 30 years. That in­clud­ed a 25 per cent re­duc­tion in mur­ders---the low­est rate in eight years.

A Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit was launched in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in 2020.

There was al­so a 38 per cent re­duc­tion in crim­i­nal gangs and mem­ber­ship in gangs de­clined by 58 per cent.

Dur­ing his first year in the po­si­tion, Grif­fith re­ceived an 81 per cent pass­ing grade from the PSC.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith has had clash­es with the me­dia, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley (over the po­lice han­dling of a Bayshore pool par­ty last year) and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

A source close to the Com­mis­sion­er said the rigours of the job, “work­ing 20 hours dai­ly, sev­en days, ac­ces­si­ble to every­one” has tak­en a toll.

“Twice he was ward­ed at St Clair Med­ical.

“His body crashed, blood pres­sure lev­els hav­ing sky­rock­et­ed at times. Be­fore he was 110/70 and 53 beats a minute, healthy lev­els.

“Now those with agen­das dif­fer­ent to him have turned their guns at his fam­i­ly, more re­cent­ly his son Gary III and his daugh­ter, T’Shau­na.’’

Death threats al­most every week

Grif­fith’s wife, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, said: “I ful­ly un­der­stand self-sac­ri­fice is es­sen­tial to lead­er­ship, as this fam­i­ly has been in the unique po­si­tion for a num­ber of years. Every­thing ac­com­pa­ny­ing lead­er­ship po­si­tions im­pacts the fam­i­ly, good, bad or in­dif­fer­ent.

“When Gary be­came Com­mis­sion­er, I was asked by a jour­nal­ist, ‘Are you pre­pared for the im­pact on your fam­i­ly?’ I stat­ed this wasn’t our first for­ay in­to pub­lic life, as such, we were as pre­pared as we could be.

“As I re­flect, noth­ing could have pre­pared us for the ex­tremes we faced every day. I’ve seen nu­mer­ous lives pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed by Gary in his po­si­tion, how­ev­er, ex­act­ly how much is one ex­pect­ed to sac­ri­fice?

”Not on­ly has the role placed sig­nif­i­cant strain on the fam­i­ly, with the al­most week­ly new death threats, changes to some free­doms we take for grant­ed, the con­stant mon­i­tor­ing, con­stant vig­i­lance.

“But it’s al­so im­pact­ed in ways I re­al­ly wouldn’t have imag­ined. Afraid? No. Over it? Def­i­nite­ly.

”One of these ways is the toll on Gary’s health, hav­ing been hos­pi­talised twice.

“His health has been im­pact­ed in ways that would oth­er­wise nev­er have been an is­sue. Lack of ba­sic hu­man re­quire­ments of rest, sleep, nu­tri­tion, takes its toll.”

Dy­er-Grif­fith said there have been re­cent char­ac­ter at­tacks on the fam­i­ly which “demon­strat­ed the ab­solute­ly cal­lous spec­trum with­in which we op­er­ate.”

She added: ”Any­one who knows Gary, knows the con­trived, con­cert­ed, con­cen­trat­ed at­tacks on the fam­i­ly will evoke a re­sponse from him, quite nat­u­ral­ly but the in­ten­si­ty, re­al­ly begs the ques­tion, is this worth it?

“The toll on this fam­i­ly, can­not be quan­ti­fied, no amount of re­mu­ner­a­tion can buffer the im­pact and I can safe­ly say, life goes on with or with­out it if that be God’s will.’’

The se­lec­tion process

The June 17 le­gal no­tice states that the PSC will con­duct a re­cruit­ment process, in­clud­ing invit­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for the posts.

From the ap­pli­ca­tions re­ceived the PSC will se­lect the most suit­able can­di­dates for the as­sess­ment process. The can­di­dates will be sub­ject­ed to se­cu­ri­ty and pro­fes­sion­al vet­ting.

The as­sess­ment in­cludes a re­view of the can­di­date’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, a med­ical re­port and the se­cu­ri­ty and pro­fes­sion­al vet­ting re­ports.

The al­so take in­to ac­count all in­for­ma­tion on the can­di­dates and com­pile an or­der of mer­it list

The names of the peo­ple list­ed on the or­der of mer­it list will be sub­mit­ted to the Pres­i­dent in ac­cor­dance with the pro­ce­dure set out in Sec­tion 123 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

When ei­ther the post of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or Deputy Com­mis­sion­er is va­cant or is about to be­come va­cant, the PSC may sub­mit to the Pres­i­dent a list of suit­ably qual­i­fied can­di­dates from among the ranks of the TTPS, in­clud­ing those on con­tract, or pre­vi­ous­ly on con­tract, as nom­i­nees to act in the po­si­tions pend­ing the con­clu­sion of the re­cruit­ment process.