KEVON FELMINE
Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Three weeks af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo called out 100 vol­un­tary sol­diers to al­low the De­fence Force (TTDF) to boost its sup­port of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in its fight against crime, in­ves­ti­ga­tors ar­rest­ed a Reg­i­ment pri­vate as­signed to be part of joint pa­trols for his al­leged in­volve­ment in the vi­o­lent rob­bery of a Ma­yaro fam­i­ly.

The 37-year-old, who is at­tached to the Cu­mu­to base, was on tem­po­rary du­ty at the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion. His ar­rest came af­ter one of his vic­tims went to the sta­tion to give a state­ment and saw him there wear­ing his army uni­form.

In her Oc­to­ber 31 procla­ma­tion, Kan­ga­loo called out the vol­un­teers to strength­en the TTDF’s ca­pa­bil­i­ty to­wards ful­fill­ing op­er­a­tional sup­port to the TTPS, in or­der to boost safe­ty for the pre-Christ­mas sea­son and in­to the 2024 Car­ni­val pe­ri­od. The sup­ple­men­tary of­fi­cers will serve un­til Feb­ru­ary 29, 2024.

A re­port stat­ed that the fam­i­ly, who owns a hard­ware, was at home in Mafek­ing Vil­lage at 4.55 pm when a heav­i­ly tint­ed black SUV with blue swiv­el lights pulled up. Six men, one in plain clothes, two in po­lice tac­ti­cal wear and three in army uni­forms, got out of the SUV. Two had firearms. The men ap­proached the house and told the 47-year-old home­own­er that they were in­ves­ti­gat­ing a re­port of a house fire and came for sur­veil­lance footage.

The home­own­er al­lowed the men in­side, where his wife, 44, and son, 23, were. How­ev­er, the men then an­nounced a rob­bery and bound the fam­i­ly’s hands and feet be­fore rob­bing them of gold jew­el­ry, cash, mo­bile phones and their Dig­i­tal Video Recorder, all val­ued at $67,400. The men then left in the SUV.

The fam­i­ly con­tact­ed Ma­yaro CID and re­spond­ing of­fi­cers took them to the Ma­yaro Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty for treat­ment.

They sub­se­quent­ly went to the sta­tion to give a state­ment, where one of the vic­tims saw the pri­vate. He told the in­ves­ti­ga­tor, who then ques­tioned and de­tained the sol­dier.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the ar­rest caused some wor­ry for of­fi­cers at the sta­tion who car­ry out joint pa­trols.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were still search­ing for the oth­ers in­volved up to yes­ter­day evening.

Of­fi­cers, how­ev­er, re­mained tightlipped about whether po­lice of­fi­cers were al­so among those be­ing sought in con­nec­tion with the rob­bery.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, TTPS So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (PSWA) pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, plead­ed with the pub­lic not to give up on law en­force­ment agen­cies.

Dick­son ac­knowl­edged that with many po­lice of­fi­cers be­fore the courts or un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, some of his col­leagues face back­lash from the pub­lic when do­ing their jobs.

Over the last five years, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty has re­ceived over 2,260 com­plaints about po­lice of­fi­cers’ con­duct. By Ju­ly, 1,640 were crim­i­nal com­plaints.

“We would want and ask mem­bers of the pub­lic not to give up on the or­gan­i­sa­tions that these of­fi­cers be­long to, and in this in­stance, those per­sons are no bonafide of­fi­cers. Be­cause they are not bonafide, do not paint every­one with the same brush,” Dick­son said.

Dick­son told Guardian Me­dia that the PSWA’s in­for­ma­tion is the same as the pub­lic and ap­pre­ci­ates there is an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He said any in­stance of law en­force­ment agen­cies’ uni­forms in­volved in breach­ing the con­fi­dence and safe­ty of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens is an in­dict­ment on their or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Dick­son said the PSWA was out­raged, not­ing that the in­ci­dent was not in the best in­ter­ests of those who wear the uni­forms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

“Whether it be a sol­dier, a po­lice of­fi­cer, an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer, any­one un­der the am­bit of the law who was giv­en the en­trust­ment to do a par­tic­u­lar du­ty.”

Dick­son said the pub­lic should know that when law en­force­ment of­fi­cers com­mit crimes, they are in the mi­nor­i­ty. He said the pub­lic should al­so un­der­stand that what hap­pens in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices is a sub­set of so­ci­ety.

The PSWA called on its col­leagues in oth­er agen­cies to weed out those who de­cid­ed to run afoul of the law while wear­ing a uni­form rep­re­sent­ing a bea­con of trust and con­fi­dence.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we al­so call on the of­fi­cers who are even con­sid­er­ing go­ing the way of breach­ing the trust of the pub­lic al­ready be­stowed up­on us, as the pub­lic looks in our di­rec­tion for an in­ter­ven­tion, es­pe­cial­ly in times of cri­sis, for them to de­sist, de­ter, make a 180 piv­ot from where they are and not en­ter that,” Dick­son said.

He said when those with the pub­lic’s trust to do a job fall short, it dents the re­la­tion­ship.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the TTDF for a re­sponse yes­ter­day but there was no com­ment.

Ef­forts to reach Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher were un­suc­cess­ful. Mean­while, the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Unit on­ly said that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter were on­go­ing.