JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), the dis­ci­pli­nary body over­see­ing the ex­ec­u­tive of the po­lice ser­vice, says it will pro­vide a full re­sponse to a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent by ac­tivist Umar Ab­dul­lah re­gard­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion to wear the Pun­ish­er sym­bol on his uni­form.

In a let­ter dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 25, Dale Brizan, PolSC’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment, ac­knowl­edged Ab­dul­lah’s con­cerns. “Your pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter dat­ed 11th Feb­ru­ary 2026 ad­dressed to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion on the cap­tioned sub­ject is ac­knowl­edged. Please be ad­vised that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion will pro­vide a sub­stan­tive re­sponse on the mat­ter by Fri­day, March 6, 2026,” the let­ter stat­ed.

Ab­dul­lah had threat­ened le­gal ac­tion against the PolSC if it failed to re­spond with­in 14 days re­gard­ing Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion to wear the patch. In the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, at­tor­neys Keron Ramkhal­wan and Fay­ola Sandy al­leged that the PolSC had un­rea­son­ably de­layed ad­dress­ing the mat­ter.

Ab­dul­lah, leader of the New Wave Move­ment, first sub­mit­ted a for­mal com­plaint to the PolSC in Ju­ly last year, call­ing for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against Gue­var­ro and an or­der pre­vent­ing him from wear­ing the Pun­ish­er sym­bol on his uni­form.

On Tues­day, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der de­scribed Gue­var­ro’s con­tin­ued use of the lo­go as a “non-is­sue.”

Speak­ing to re­porters out­side the Sen­ate, Alexan­der sug­gest­ed the me­dia fo­cus on more press­ing mat­ters. “It have peo­ple who does wear cross and peo­ple don’t like it. It have peo­ple who does wear tat­toos and peo­ple don’t like it,” he said.

When asked about the Pun­ish­er sym­bol—as­so­ci­at­ed in pop­u­lar cul­ture with vi­o­lent vig­i­lante jus­tice, in­clud­ing mur­der—Alexan­der ques­tioned its mean­ing to the wear­er, in­sist­ing the sym­bol does not sig­ni­fy vi­o­lence.

“I don’t think so! Those things are ir­rel­e­vant, you know. The idea is, ask some good ques­tions as it re­lates to crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty on the na­tion’s streets and what the me­dia is do­ing to as­sist,” he said.

The patch de­picts a skull sur­round­ed by the words, “God is the judge. We make the ap­point­ments.” Gue­var­ro was last seen wear­ing the patch on Car­ni­val Mon­day.

When asked about wear­ing the patch dur­ing a post-Car­ni­val me­dia brief­ing last Fri­day at the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Gue­var­ro dis­missed the ques­tion as sen­sa­tion­al­ism.

“We are deal­ing here with jour­nal­ism this morn­ing, not sen­sa­tion­al­ism, right? So let us stick to Car­ni­val and all the niceties that came with it, the re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crime and all of that, not sen­sa­tion­al­ism. That has noth­ing to do with polic­ing,” he said.

When told that the badge has been as­so­ci­at­ed with ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings and could send the wrong mes­sage if worn by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gue­var­ro re­spond­ed, “So again, that is your opin­ion. And you have ex­pressed your opin­ion. And I take your opin­ion. Let’s move on. All right. Next ques­tion, please.”