JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

With four po­lice of­fi­cers charged and a fifth ar­rest­ed re­cent­ly, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is warn­ing of­fi­cers to re­frain from en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

While he was not present at a State of Emer­gency (SoE) me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro, through his SoE Gold Com­man­der DCP Suzette Mar­tin, is­sued the warn­ing.

“Let me be clear that any of­fi­cer who be­lieves they can use this or­gan­i­sa­tion as a shield for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is grave­ly mis­tak­en.

“If you choose to en­gage in wrong­do­ing, you will be found, you will be re­moved, and you will face the full brunt of the law.

“The TTPS will not car­ry any­one who seeks to cor­rupt its mis­sion or tar­nish its name,” he said

He urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to work with the TTPS by shar­ing in­for­ma­tion, re­port­ing sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty and part­ner­ing with of­fi­cers to strength­en com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty.

“Your co­op­er­a­tion re­mains vi­tal in en­sur­ing that those who un­der­mine the in­tegri­ty of the ser­vice are iden­ti­fied and re­moved from our ranks,” Gue­var­ro said.

He added that the TTPS re­mains stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and the high­est stan­dards of polic­ing.

He en­cour­aged the pub­lic to part­ner with the po­lice to “build a safer, more se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Gue­var­ro’s state­ment fol­lows the re­cent ar­rest of a po­lice of­fi­cer as­signed to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion for al­leged­ly re­mov­ing two kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na, which was lodged at the sta­tion for safe­keep­ing.

Mean­while, con­sta­bles Mervyn Eligon, Daawu­ud Mo­hammed, Alexsi Har­riper­sad and Akiel Smith were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, on De­cem­ber 31, 2025, Eligon went to an area in South Trinidad along with the oth­er of­fi­cers and found a firearm with am­mu­ni­tion in­side a black plas­tic bag.

The of­fi­cers then left the area and re­turned to the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion, where it was record­ed in the sta­tion di­ary that noth­ing il­le­gal was found.

Some­time af­ter, the of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to an­oth­er re­port and, on their re­turn, made a false en­try in the sta­tion di­ary al­leg­ing that they found the same firearm in that lo­ca­tion.

On Jan­u­ary 5, a re­port was made to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) and the of­fi­cers were lat­er ar­rest­ed and charged.

Eligon was charged with two of­fences of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and was grant­ed $275,000 bail, while Mo­hammed, Har­riper­sad and Smith were each grant­ed $150,000 bail when they ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Bethelmy on Wednes­day. The mat­ter was ad­journed to April 23.