An­na-Lisa Paul

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is clean­ing house and has is­sued an open in­vi­ta­tion to all po­lice of­fi­cers to reaf­firm their com­mit­ment to the job; or hand in their badge if they feel un­able to per­form.

Is­su­ing a stark warn­ing hours af­ter a po­lice con­sta­ble at­tached to the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with last month’s mil­lion-dol­lar theft of mar­i­jua­na from the sta­tion – he in­sist­ed, “Cor­rup­tion will find no shel­ter in this or­ga­ni­za­tion.”

The of­fi­cer who has five years' ser­vice, was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers from the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) on Fri­day; and for­mal­ly charged with Mis­be­hav­iour in Pub­lic Of­fice.

He is sched­uled to ap­pear in court to­mor­row.

The month-long metic­u­lous in­ves­ti­ga­tion was ini­ti­at­ed af­ter a dis­crep­an­cy was dis­cov­ered in nar­cotics ex­hibits lodged at the sta­tion, fol­low­ing an an­ti-nar­cotics op­er­a­tion con­duct­ed in the Ma­coya In­dus­tri­al Area in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed the seizure by of­fi­cers of the DCP Op­er­a­tions Unit, had re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of three in­di­vid­u­als and the re­cov­ery of 89 pack­ets of sus­pect­ed cannabis.

How­ev­er, a rou­tine fol­low-up by an of­fi­cer as that in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ued, found sev­er­al in­con­sis­ten­cies in the ev­i­dence log and ex­hibits seized.

Based on this, Gue­var­ro or­dered a de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tion which found there had been a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to tam­per with ev­i­dence.

In a strong­ly word­ed state­ment in de­fence of the TTPS, the Com­mis­sion­er vowed, “I will con­tin­ue to stand firm­ly be­hind the thou­sands of of­fi­cers who serve with ho­n­our, but I will go all out to re­move those who seek to stain our no­ble oc­cu­pa­tion.”

He urged per­sons to do some in­tro­spec­tion and ad­vised, “In­tegri­ty is not some­thing that can be tak­en, it is some­thing you choose to give away. And when you do, you al­so give up your place among us.”

He re­it­er­at­ed that this in­ci­dent was a stark re­minder that, “The badge is not a shield for dis­hon­our but rather it is a sym­bol of trust, earned dai­ly through ser­vice and sac­ri­fice.”

The top cop said, “To those who be­lieve they can ex­ploit their po­si­tion for per­son­al gain, let this serve as no­tice that we are watch­ing, we are act­ing, and we are not afraid to clean our own house.”

The CoP praised the of­fi­cers who ex­e­cut­ed the orig­i­nal seizure; and al­so com­mend­ed the PSB in­ves­ti­ga­tors for their com­mit­ment to jus­tice and in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty which he said, had served to pro­tect the rep­u­ta­tion of every hon­est of­fi­cer who wears the uni­form.

Gue­var­ro care­ful­ly not­ed, “If you’re not proud of the badge you wear, then feel free to hand it in be­fore it’s tak­en away from you. Let this be a turn­ing point; not just in ac­count­abil­i­ty, but in reaf­firm­ing the val­ues that de­fine the TTPS.”

Fol­low­ing the of­fi­cer’s ar­rest on Fri­day, an­oth­er se­nior po­lice of­fi­cial said shame­ful ac­tions such as these, not on­ly im­pact­ed the of­fi­cer and his fam­i­ly, but al­so paint­ed the en­tire TTPS in a bad light.

The of­fi­cer said the dis­graced law­man’s re­port­ed ac­tions and al­leged col­lu­sion with crim­i­nal el­e­ments were up­set­ting and frus­trat­ing the ef­forts the TTPS were em­ploy­ing to win back the pub­lic’s trust.