Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

Head of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), David West, has said that the PCA has been re­ceiv­ing an in­creas­ing num­ber of re­ports against po­lice of­fi­cers.

“The num­ber of com­plaints to the au­thor­i­ty has in­creased quite a lot,” West con­firmed dur­ing a vir­tu­al event on Thurs­day evening.

Fol­low­ing up on West’s state­ment, the PCA con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 229 re­ports have been made for the year thus far.

Last year there were 1,000 re­ports lodged, 16 few­er than what was made the year be­fore.

De­spite more work on their desks, West as­sured that the PCA has the re­sources to ful­fil its man­date.

“We have al­so re­cent­ly brought on three new in­ves­ti­ga­tors who I am very proud of and who will train with our oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tors, and we will hope­ful­ly be able to bring down the cas­es and work in a more ef­fi­cient man­ner,” he an­nounced.

He ex­pressed re­lief by the an­nounce­ment ear­li­er this week by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds, that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been re­cent­ly hand­ed 1,000 ad­di­tion­al body cam­eras. This lat­est batch will see 1,600 out of close to 6,000 po­lice of­fi­cers equipped with body­cams.

West ex­plained that this will as­sist the PCA with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“I hope they use that. The im­por­tance of the body cams is that it is a re­flec­tion of what hap­pens in re­al-time so if the po­lice put on the body cam, they have a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion if a com­plaint is made, and this helps prove ‘X’ or ‘Y’ or what­ev­er claim is made against them,” he in­di­cat­ed.

The PCA di­rec­tor not­ed that the or­gan­i­sa­tion has been li­ais­ing with the Of­fice of Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) on the find­ings of sev­er­al “high-pro­file cas­es.”

Among the mat­ters he high­light­ed is the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Ir­win Hack­shaw, who is ac­cused of de­posit­ing close to $2 mil­lion in his per­son­al bank ac­counts from do­na­tions re­ceived at Christ­mas par­ties.

“I am anx­ious­ly await­ing the out­come of that mat­ter and what is the lat­est with the DPP. I have been in con­tact with the DPP and they are work­ing on that mat­ter,” West said.

An­oth­er case com­plet­ed by the PCA is the po­lice-in­volved killings of three Mor­vant men in 2020.

“We in­ves­ti­gat­ed that mat­ter, a very com­plex mat­ter but we fin­ished it and we made rec­om­men­da­tions to the DPP and, again, we look for­ward to hear­ing what hap­pens to that mat­ter,” ac­cord­ing to West.

He said the PCA is al­so await­ing the out­come of its find­ings in­to the deaths of An­drea Bharatt’s kid­nap and mur­der sus­pects, Joel Bal­con and An­drew Mor­ris while in po­lice cus­tody.

“We found that and made a rec­om­men­da­tion to the DPP that crim­i­nal of­fences had tak­en place so, again, we wait on that mat­ter,” he not­ed.

In the mean­time, cit­i­zens are be­ing urged to en­sure they cap­ture enough ev­i­dence dur­ing all po­lice ex­er­cis­es.

“You are al­lowed to video the po­lice once you are not dis­rupt­ing the of­fi­cers while they are ex­e­cut­ing their du­ty,” West ad­vised.

Mean­while, PCA Deputy di­rec­tor Michelle Solomon-Baksh re­mind­ed cit­i­zens that if an of­fi­cer fails to dis­play his or her reg­i­men­tal of­fi­cer, this is an of­fence and should be re­port­ed. She al­so as­sured that all com­plaints made to the PCA are con­fi­den­tial.

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