Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

As the mur­der toll for 2024 con­tin­ued to climb, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has again high­light­ed the need for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion to help quell the es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher made the re­marks dur­ing the an­nu­al TTPS In­ter­faith ser­vice at the Cathe­dral of Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain, on Sun­day.

Her re­marks came as three un­re­lat­ed mur­ders were record­ed in Tu­na­puna, Bel­mont, Ch­agua­nas and Port-of-Spain be­tween Sat­ur­day night and yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

In the lat­est in­ci­dent, 26-year-old loader em­ployed with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) in build­ing booths was gunned down at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, hours af­ter Hare­wood-Christo­pher made the re­marks.

The mur­der toll as of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon was 13 for the year thus far.

Dur­ing her two-minute-long fea­ture ad­dress at the ser­vice, Hare­wood-Christo­pher ad­dressed a packed church as cur­rent and re­tired of­fi­cers lis­tened.

In her ad­dress, she stressed the need for God’s sup­port in any an­ti-crime ef­fort.

She said, “We come and ac­knowl­edge the su­prema­cy of God and the im­por­tant role he has to play for us in achiev­ing our man­date.

“We know all that we have gone through and we know with God’s grace and with his help, we will suc­ceed.”

“The tides will turn and we will see the suc­cess we de­sire,” she added.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher first stressed the im­por­tance of di­vine sup­port to crime-fight­ing on March 16, 2023, dur­ing a meet­ing of the Greater Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce.

“The po­lice could come up with what­ev­er strat­e­gy, but un­less we en­list the help of God, we will be work­ing in vain,” Hare­wood-Christo­pher said at that event.

The re­marks drew mixed re­spons­es from the pub­lic with some peo­ple en­dors­ing her stand­point while oth­ers were crit­i­cal.

Yes­ter­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher did not ac­cept any ques­tions from re­porters af­ter the ser­vice and led a pa­rade of se­nior and ju­nior po­lice of­fi­cers from In­de­pen­dence Square to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, on Sackville Street.

Con­sta­ble Fin­bar Rochford, who of­fered Is­lam­ic prayers, de­fend­ed Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s po­si­tion on the im­por­tance of prayer, not­ing that any bat­tle against evil and wrong­do­ing re­quired God’s help.

“The pub­lic made fun of my Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice when she men­tioned prayer but she un­der­stands the re­al­i­ty of the time and what many fail to re­alise is that this fight is not on­ly phys­i­cal but a spir­i­tu­al one,” he said.

Dur­ing his ser­mon, Fa­ther David Khan said he was hope­ful that peo­ple of in­tel­li­gence and faith can join forces to ad­dress the prob­lem while find­ing so­lu­tions.

Khan stressed that team­work be­tween faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions and sec­u­lar or­gan­i­sa­tions would yield re­sults and called on both seg­ments to work to­geth­er.

He al­so called on the po­lice to do their best to re­store trust among the pub­lic, re­fer­ring to a re­cent poll con­duct­ed by a tele­vi­sion sta­tion which sug­gest­ed that 100 per cent of callers were dis­re­spect­ed by a po­lice of­fi­cer.

He said, “I will want to see at the end of 2024 that same ques­tion asked and let us see what the sur­vey will say.

“Let us be tru­ly wise. This is your epiphany, this is your man­i­fes­ta­tion.”