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Friday, July 11, 2025

Griffith gave no permission for PNM manifesto photo

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1800 days ago
20200805
Gary Griffith, Commissioner of Police

Gary Griffith, Commissioner of Police

Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

 

Fierce­ly deny­ing that he gave per­mis­sion to the PNM to use his of­fi­cial pho­to in their 2020 man­i­festo, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says he has no in­ten­tion of vot­ing for any po­lit­i­cal par­ty this year.

His re­sponse came af­ter at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing UNC ac­tivist and for­mer Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj raised con­cerns about the use of his pho­to and its im­pact on the in­de­pen­dence of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last evening, Grif­fith said he had tak­en note of the use of the pho­to but could not stop any po­lit­i­cal par­ty from us­ing his work in the TTPS to so­lic­it sup­port and gar­ner votes.

"My com­ments were clear and it re­mains that way. No serv­ing po­lice of­fi­cer should show any bias or af­fil­i­a­tion to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty via mak­ing any state­ment or ac­tion in that man­ner. So ob­vi­ous­ly I gave no such per­mis­sion as it would then have meant or be per­ceived that I am giv­ing ap­proval and sup­port to a spe­cif­ic po­lit­i­cal par­ty," Grif­fith said.

He added, "I am smack in the mid­dle of lead­ing op­er­a­tions to en­sure the coun­try ad­heres to the COVID reg­u­la­tions, CPL, and mo­tor­cades and meet­ings lead­ing up to gen­er­al elec­tions 2020, so I def­i­nite­ly did not see or read any man­i­festo pub­lished by any po­lit­i­cal par­ty."

How­ev­er, he said us­ing a Com­mis­sion­er's pho­to was noth­ing new.

"There have been sev­er­al man­i­festos over the last few decades which would have a pho­to­graph of a po­lice of­fi­cer in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ex­tract of their Man­i­festo. Prob­a­bly my pho­to­graph may be as sen­sa­tion­al as it would be con­tro­ver­sial. We have no law to pre­vent it, but like­wise, we would not ap­prove or en­dorse it," he added.

Asked whether he had tak­en any ac­tion against the PNM to re­move it, Grif­fith said, "I can­not or­der or pre­vent any po­lit­i­cal par­ty from not re­fer­ring to me or the Po­lice Ser­vice in an elec­tion cam­paign to boost their sup­port. If for ex­am­ple, some­one has na­tion­al sup­port of over 80 per cent, it would be sur­pris­ing if that is not used. So if every po­lit­i­cal par­ty men­tions me and post pho­tos of me, it cer­tain­ly does not mean that I sup­port or en­dorse them."

For this rea­son, Grif­fith says he will not be vot­ing in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions.

"Specif­i­cal­ly be­cause of the na­tion­al in­ter­est of the COP, I would not be vot­ing whilst I sit in this chair, sim­ply to en­sure that the gos­sip posse on one side can­not ac­cuse me of be­ing af­fil­i­at­ed to the oth­er side," he said.

He added, " 2025 is a dif­fer­ent ball game."

In the let­ter, Ma­haraj's at­tor­ney Ganesh Sa­roop en­quired whether Grif­fith gave the PNM per­mis­sion to use his of­fi­cial pho­to­graph for the PNM’s 2020 elec­tion man­i­festo. On Wednes­day, Ma­haraj, through his at­tor­neys, sent a free­dom of in­for­ma­tion re­quest al­so ask­ing if the com­mis­sion­er gave his per­mis­sion.

Sa­roop said in the let­ter that the TTPS should not be af­fil­i­at­ed with any par­ty.

"It is the cor­ner­stone of any west­ern de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety that the po­lice ser­vice must be an in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tion. It must for­ev­er main­tain its po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence and im­par­tial­i­ty, and is ac­cord­ing­ly in­su­lat­ed from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence by the Con­sti­tu­tion of this great na­tion,” Sa­roop said.

He not­ed, "It would be a reck­less abuse of pow­er to give such con­sent be­cause it would be in­con­sis­tent with the re­cent state­ments made, and ac­tion is tak­en to pro­tect and pre­serve the in­de­pen­dence of the po­lice ser­vice,” Sa­roop said, adding, “Iron­i­cal­ly, the com­mis­sion­er has now found him­self in the heart of a PNM cam­paign tool.

Sa­roop al­so said Grif­fith had tak­en a stance against the TTPS for pub­licly ex­press­ing a po­lit­i­cal opin­ion and he should fol­low the same rules.

“This will erode pub­lic con­fi­dence in the abil­i­ty of the po­lice ser­vice to be im­par­tial at a time when our client in­structs that there are dis­turb­ing pic­tures on so­cial me­dia of po­lice ve­hi­cles ac­com­pa­ny­ing po­lit­i­cal mo­tor­cades for the said rul­ing PNM par­ty, with of­fi­cers hold­ing PNM flags, whist in full uni­form in­side of the ve­hi­cles," he added.

The let­ter fur­ther said, "If you did not give per­mis­sion for these pic­tures to be used in the PNM’s man­i­festo, then it would seem that you and your of­fice have be­come in­no­cent ca­su­al­ties and vic­tims in what amounts to a clear plot to score cheap po­lit­i­cal points by as­so­ci­at­ing you and your of­fice with the par­ty.”

Sa­roop al­so said "There have been nu­mer­ous re­ports from can­di­dates who feel they have been un­fair­ly tar­get­ed and vic­timised by mem­bers of the TTPS who have shown open favouritism and po­lit­i­cal bias to­ward the PNM can­di­dates." He not­ed that the use of the pho­to was "con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and pos­si­bly in breach of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions for the pho­to­graph to be used in a po­lit­i­cal con­text even if per­mis­sion was giv­en. Grif­fith was giv­en 48 hours to re­spond to the let­ter.


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