Gail Alexan­der

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith, who was this coun­try’s po­lice com­mis­sion­er from 2018 to 2021, has of­fered his help to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to deal with the crime sit­u­a­tion.

In a video state­ment yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said, “We have a na­tion to de­fend. This is not about Kei­th ver­sus Gary, this is about good ver­sus evil. We don’t have to be friends Kei­th but we can both be pa­tri­ots.”

He point­ed out that in 2013-15 when he was na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, there was the high­est re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crime in 31 years and three years ago there was the high­est re­duc­tion in vi­o­lent crime in 17 years.

High­light­ing oth­er achieve­ments dur­ing his tenure as po­lice com­mis­sion­er, Grif­fith added, “It’s in this re­gard I’m again of­fer­ing my ser­vices to the coun­try. To Kei­th Row­ley, this is big­ger than us, this is big­ger than Gary ver­sus you, big­ger than pol­i­tics. Our job as ser­vants of this coun­try and pa­tri­ots is to fix this coun­try.

“I can help bring back the or­der we had in 2021. Three years af­ter there was or­der and con­trol, it has now to­tal­ly col­lapsed to the point that nowhere in our coun­try is con­sid­ered safe from brazen crim­i­nals.”

He was crit­i­cal of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds, whom he said did not know “what to do to solve the crime prob­lem” and fur­ther claimed that “those in charge now lack the strate­gi­cal, tac­ti­cal and op­er­a­tional ex­per­tise to win back this coun­try”.

Not­ing that the crime prob­lem can­not be solved by leg­is­la­tion alone, Grif­fith said there is a need for a lev­el of op­er­a­tional re­sponse and ini­tia­tives that most politi­cians can­not pro­vide or un­der­stand be­cause they are not trained in law en­force­ment tac­tics or strat­e­gy.

“This is al­so why putting the fo­cus on po­lit­i­cal crime talks amongst par­lia­men­tar­i­ans would have ab­solute­ly no ma­jor pos­i­tive im­pact, as it will mere­ly be one group of civil­ians talk­ing to an­oth­er group of civil­ians who are politi­cians with no train­ing or ex­per­tise to solve the prob­lem, which is why when these politi­cians meet they sole­ly come up with leg­isla­tive amend­ments or off-the-cuff ideas to re­duce crime, which any cit­i­zen can do. That’s not how you re­duce crime in a coun­try,” he said.

“So to Kei­th Row­ley, there will be doubters and haters, there will be those in an un­holy al­liance with crim­i­nals and there will be those whis­per­ing lies and mis­in­for­ma­tion in­to your ears, as they’ve done be­fore be­cause of that agen­da. I ask you to dis­miss them all and think for your­self.

“If I in­deed was the biggest mis­take, then how come af­ter al­most four years of search­ing, fish­ing ex­pe­di­tions and witch hunt­ing, not one thing has been found, not one civil­ian or po­lice of­fi­cer ar­rest­ed for what those who lied to you claimed.”

Grif­fith added, “The truth is we don’t have to be friends, Kei­th, be­cause this is about sav­ing lives, pro­tect­ing scared, trau­ma­tised cit­i­zens. This is not a time about ego, it’s about send­ing a strong sig­nal to the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and crim­i­nal el­e­ments that we in­tend to take back our coun­try.”

He re­it­er­at­ed that he was reach­ing out to Row­ley as one po­lit­i­cal leader to an­oth­er, as well as a for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

“I’m will­ing yet again to let you know I’m will­ing to help be­cause our coun­try des­per­ate­ly needs it. We can­not wait un­til af­ter an­oth­er gen­er­al elec­tion, we need to act now. I’m will­ing to help you and show you the strate­gies and sys­tems that made our coun­try safer on two oc­ca­sions,” he said.

“I’m not even ask­ing about this thing for Hinds to be re­moved. Just give me and my team, who did it be­fore on two oc­ca­sions, the chance to give the prop­er ad­vice to those in au­thor­i­ty so we can have a fight­ing chance to peg back the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

“This isn’t about po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry, Kei­th, it’s about sav­ing lives and restor­ing safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. Once again Kei­th, the ball is in your court.”

There was no re­ply from Row­ley yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions about Grif­fith’s of­fer.