SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Be­tween Oc­to­ber 2020 and Sep­tem­ber 2021, 115 po­lice of­fi­cers were im­pli­cat­ed in mur­ders, fa­tal shoot­ings and non-fa­tal shoot­ings.

This ac­cord­ing to da­ta sub­mit­ted by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) to the Par­lia­ment in its 2020/2021 an­nu­al re­port on Tues­day.

The 144-page re­port de­tailed the num­ber of re­ports made to the PCA dur­ing the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1, 2020, and Sep­tem­ber 30, 2022.

The PCA said dur­ing that pe­ri­od, it re­ceived 969 ini­tial re­ports (IRs.) Ac­cord­ing to the PCA’s op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures, 47 out of every 100 re­ports, with a to­tal of 452 re­ports, were deemed to fall un­der the au­thor­i­ty’s am­bit, mean­ing it could in­ves­ti­gate these mat­ters.

“In ad­di­tion, fif­teen (15) IRs, re­port­ed dur­ing the pre­vi­ous (2019/2020) re­port­ing pe­ri­od, were sub­se­quent­ly clas­si­fied as com­plaints dur­ing this re­port­ing pe­ri­od. There­fore, the to­tal num­ber of IRs as­sessed for the re­port­ing pe­ri­od was nine hun­dred and eighty-four (984),” the re­port stat­ed.

The au­thor­i­ty re­port­ed an av­er­age of 39 com­plaints per month, an 18 per cent in­crease from the last re­port­ing pe­ri­od.

The PCA can al­so ini­ti­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tions on its own.

“Of nine­ty-sev­en (97) com­plaints ini­ti­at­ed by the PCA dur­ing the re­port­ing pe­ri­od, 81% (78) orig­i­nat­ed from news­pa­per ar­ti­cles; 10% (10) of the com­plaints orig­i­nat­ed from so­cial me­dia in­clud­ing the Face­book ap­pli­ca­tion; and the re­main­ing nine (9) com­plaints were ini­ti­at­ed af­ter re­ceiv­ing re­ports from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB), stake­hold­ers, tele­vi­sion and ra­dio,” the re­port stat­ed.

Re­ports were fur­ther di­vid­ed by of­fences, di­vi­sions and the ranks of of­fi­cers ac­cused of wrong­do­ing.

The PCA said 292 po­lice of­fi­cers were ac­cused of crim­i­nal of­fences, com­pared to 310 of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ed for sim­i­lar of­fences in the 2019/2021 pe­ri­od.

“Fa­tal shoot­ings, mur­der and non-fa­tal shoot­ings were the three top­most of­fences for both re­port­ing pe­ri­ods as a to­tal of one hun­dred and fif­teen (115) of­fi­cers were al­leged­ly im­pli­cat­ed in these of­fences in the 2020/2021 re­port­ing pe­ri­od ver­sus nine­ty sev­en (97) in 2019/2020 re­port­ing pe­ri­od,” the re­port stat­ed.

The re­port not­ed that from these 115, there were 47 re­ports of mur­der, 47 re­ports of fa­tal shoot­ings and 20 re­ports of non-fa­tal shoot­ings. There was one re­port each of death in po­lice cus­tody and caus­ing death by dan­ger­ous dri­ving.

Mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice was the most preva­lent com­plaint, with 145 of­fi­cers fac­ing this ac­cu­sa­tion in 2020/2021. How­ev­er, the PCA not­ed for the same pe­ri­od in 2019/2021, 153 of­fi­cers were ac­cused of the same of­fence.

“As­sault by beat­ing, com­mon as­sault and ha­rass­ment were the three (3) main sub-cat­e­gories in both re­port­ing years. Yet, in this re­port­ing pe­ri­od, one hun­dred and four (104) of­fi­cers com­mit­ted these types of as­saults, a de­cline from the one hun­dred and twen­ty-four (124) of­fi­cers in the 2019/2020 re­port­ing pe­ri­od,” the re­port stat­ed.

Twen­ty-five of­fi­cers were ac­cused of shoot­ing with in­tent, six few­er than the pre­vi­ous re­port­ing pe­ri­od. Twen­ty-nine of­fi­cers were ac­cused of ma­li­cious dam­age, 66 of as­sault of by beat­ing, 27 of com­mon as­sault and two were ac­cused of rape.

Thir­ty-one of­fi­cers were ac­cused of per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice and sev­en were ac­cused of cor­rup­tion in of­fice.

The PCA said 33 of­fi­cers were ac­cused of lar­ce­ny and one was ac­cused of rob­bery.

From these re­ports, the PCA said 437 in­ves­ti­ga­tions were com­plet­ed, with 336 cas­es closed.

“Forty-five (45) or 10 per cent were for­ward­ed to the CoP (Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice) with rec­om­men­da­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion to be giv­en to the in­sti­tu­tion of dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings or fur­ther ac­tion. Nine­teen (19) or 4 per cent were for­ward­ed to the DPP (Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions) with rec­om­men­da­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion to be giv­en to the in­sti­tu­tion of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al or coro­nial pro­ceed­ings,” the re­port stat­ed.

Sev­en cas­es were sent to both the CoP and the DPP.