It was an ex­treme­ly proud Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) who, on Thurs­day, com­mend­ed the men and women un­der his com­mand for plac­ing them­selves, “self­less­ly be­tween harm and dan­ger to pro­tect the per­sons who we are sworn to pro­tect.”

Ad­dress­ing se­nior and ju­nior mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) dur­ing a com­men­da­tion and awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro praised the ef­forts of of­fi­cers in the dis­charge of their du­ties.

Among the in­ci­dents high­light­ed were the in­ter­ven­tion of an off-du­ty of­fi­cer who foiled an at­tempt­ed rob­bery in Port-of-Spain on Ju­ly 24; an of­fi­cer who was in­jured af­ter breach­ing a house in El Do­ra­do to stop a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­ci­dent on Ju­ly 26; and over 100 of­fi­cers who spent days search­ing for kid­nap vic­tim Jankie Satie Karim.

Gue­var­ro said, “We have of­fi­cers who are tak­ing on a dai­ly ba­sis, firearms and am­mu­ni­tion off the streets. And not just tak­ing it off, but ar­rest­ing and charg­ing per­sons and plac­ing them be­fore the courts to be an­swer­able to the ju­di­cial sys­tem.”

He said the past week had been a mile­stone, which had al­so in­vit­ed re­flec­tion and in­tro­spec­tion of the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

“We have an­swered that call. We have re­spond­ed and placed our lives on the line so as to pro­tect the good cit­i­zens of T&T, whilst re­mov­ing the el­e­ments that seek to do us harm.”

Burst­ing with pride as he ad­dressed those present, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der praised the TTPS ex­ec­u­tive for their recog­ni­tion of of­fi­cers’ ef­forts in the fight against crime, in a time­ly man­ner. He de­scribed it as a new move, re­veal­ing, “Some years ago, this prob­a­bly would not have even been thought of.”

Alexan­der said the cur­rent crop of First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers would them­selves have worked hard in years past, do­ing ex­act­ly what is hap­pen­ing now, but their ef­forts would have gone un­no­ticed.

Re­veal­ing he was “some­what dis­turbed” as he once sat where they were, the min­is­ter en­cour­aged, “Po­lice of­fi­cers, give it your all in de­fence of our good cit­i­zens.”

“Be the dif­fer­ence mak­er. Do not let any­body try to tar­nish your in­tegri­ty. Let your pride be dis­played. Let your re­spect be ac­knowl­edged.”

Pledg­ing Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port in the crime fight, he added, “I will sup­port you, whether it be by any le­gal means nec­es­sary which I might have to pro­vide for your as­sis­tance but I sup­port you and your CoP in your ef­forts be­cause we can­not ask per­sons to give of them­selves and at the same time, leave you in the dark.”

Al­though he now oc­cu­pies the post of min­is­ter, Alexan­der said he would nev­er for­get the TTPS nor would he let the ser­vice be left be­hind or alone, as this had been his “home” and he was pre­pared to look af­ter his “cas­tle.”