Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is dis­tanc­ing it­self from al­le­ga­tions made by Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice­man (SRP) Rus­sell Be­dasse in a se­ries of so­cial me­dia videos fol­low­ing the death of his moth­er.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Suzette Mar­tin said the videos had re­ceived sig­nif­i­cant at­ten­tion but were per­son­al in na­ture and did not rep­re­sent the poli­cies, prin­ci­ples, or op­er­a­tional po­si­tions of the TTPS.

She said Be­dasse has been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing chal­lenges com­pound­ed by pro­found per­son­al grief over his moth­er’s death. How­ev­er, she said the TTPS has been ac­tive­ly pro­vid­ing wel­fare as­sis­tance and psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port to him and his fam­i­ly.

Mar­tin al­so con­firmed that an of­fi­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Be­dasse’s moth­er’s death is un­der­way. The probe, she as­sured, is be­ing con­duct­ed with “the ut­most sen­si­tiv­i­ty, thor­ough­ness, and im­par­tial­i­ty,” with the TTPS com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that all the rel­e­vant facts are es­tab­lished and jus­tice is served.

While com­pas­sion­ate to the of­fi­cer’s per­son­al strug­gles, she cau­tioned that the unau­tho­rised re­lease of mis­lead­ing in­for­ma­tion or spec­u­la­tive com­men­tary in­to the pub­lic do­main has the po­ten­tial to erode pub­lic con­fi­dence and in­ter­fere with in­ves­tiga­tive process­es.

“As such, this mat­ter will con­tin­ue to be ad­dressed through ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­nal and le­gal chan­nels in keep­ing with TTPS reg­u­la­tions and due process,” she said.

Be­dasse has crit­i­cised his col­leagues for what he de­scribed as their lack of re­sponse and han­dling of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his moth­er’s death. He sub­se­quent­ly ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion but ad­mit­ted that pri­or to his moth­er’s pass­ing, he had not re­port­ed for du­ty for about two months due to an emer­gency with his daugh­ter.

Fifty-sev­en-year-old Shelawait­hie “Meera” Be­dasse was found hang­ing from a tree near Clifton Hill beach around 6 am on Sep­tem­ber 24, one day af­ter she was re­port­ed miss­ing. Poi­son and bro­ken tablets were re­cov­ered near­by. How­ev­er, Be­dasse has re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion of sui­cide and in­sist­ed that his moth­er was mur­dered.

Re­spond­ing to DCP Mar­tin yes­ter­day, Be­dasse main­tained that he had been truth­ful in his videos, ar­gu­ing that she “is go­ing the dis­tance to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty and the im­age” of the TTPS.

He al­so re­ject­ed the ser­vice’s of­fer of psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port, claim­ing his moth­er’s death was on­ly re­ceiv­ing at­ten­tion from the po­lice be­cause it had gone vi­ral. He ex­pressed doubt that a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be car­ried out.

Mean­while, the TTPS So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, Ag ASP Gideon Dick­son, said they are not ful­ly briefed on the mat­ter, but they will be reach­ing out to him this week.

“We don’t know what the of­fi­cer re­quires at this point in time. It will be a holis­tic, com­pre­hen­sive en­gage­ment when our Cen­tral Com­mit­tee and Wel­fare of­fi­cers get him, and if need be, our ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers will al­so en­gage along those lines.”

Mean­while, psy­chi­a­trist Dr Val­ma Deyals­ingh be­lieves the of­fi­cer’s har­row­ing or­deal, com­pound­ed by grief, is like­ly in­flu­enc­ing his ac­tions and de­ci­sions. Not­ing that stages in­volve de­nial, anger, bar­gain­ing, de­pres­sion, and ac­cep­tance, he said that he may be go­ing through de­pres­sion, which is why he ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion let­ter.

He said they al­ways cau­tion peo­ple ex­pe­ri­enc­ing grief against act­ing hasti­ly.

“Be­cause you may be act­ing out emo­tion­al­ly and not log­i­cal­ly. So, I’m hop­ing that his let­ter of res­ig­na­tion—prob­a­bly the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice might have to look at it and hold that and re­view it if he changes his mind.”

He said Be­dasie would def­i­nite­ly need pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling. The au­top­sy is still pend­ing.