An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is re­strict­ing va­ca­tion and com­pen­sato­ry leave for of­fi­cers un­til fur­ther no­tice, fol­low­ing a call for more boots on the ground as crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives in­ten­si­fy.

It was es­ti­mat­ed that hun­dreds of of­fi­cers from the ten polic­ing di­vi­sions were out yes­ter­day as they car­ried out road­blocks and stop-and-search ex­er­cis­es. Ad­vis­ing re­gion­al and di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders to com­mu­ni­cate the most re­cent re­stric­tion to all of­fi­cers in a mem­o­ran­dum dat­ed Ju­ly 16, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Op­er­a­tional Sup­port Natasha George said the di­rec­tive was “due to on­go­ing ex­i­gen­cies of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

She fur­ther ad­vised that leave re­quests ap­proved be­fore Ju­ly 16 may be re­scind­ed or amend­ed. The re­stric­tion comes on the heels of a promise by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher that the TTPS would be mov­ing to im­me­di­ate­ly in­crease the num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers on the ground as they in­ten­si­fy crime-fight­ing ef­forts fol­low­ing the bloody week­end of Ju­ly 13 and 14.

George said, “This mea­sure has be­come im­per­a­tive to the main­te­nance and in­crease of cur­rent an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives, where ad­di­tion­al hu­man re­sources are re­quired to stymie the surge of homi­cides and oth­er se­ri­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

In ad­di­tion, George said ap­proval had been grant­ed by Hare­wood-Christo­pher for the ex­ten­sion of gra­tu­itous leave pre­vi­ous­ly grant­ed by De­part­men­tal Or­der No 26 of 2024 (Car­ni­val Leave) un­til Sep­tem­ber 30. Two days af­ter the memo was is­sued, of­fi­cers hit the streets.

The an­ti-crime mea­sure led to ma­jor traf­fic pile-ups, which left mem­bers of the pub­lic frus­trat­ed and an­gry.

Deny­ing it was an­oth­er Day of To­tal Polic­ing as was ex­pe­ri­enced on March 23, 2015, in which 341 of­fi­cers em­barked on sim­i­lar op­er­a­tions in both is­lands, which led to a traf­fic grid­lock and mas­sive in­con­ve­nience, a se­nior TTPS of­fi­cial yes­ter­day de­scribed it “as struc­tured ex­er­cis­es which are more strate­gic. It is not con­sis­tent with that day of polic­ing.”

Claim­ing this was part of the TTPS’s ef­fort to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion, the of­fi­cial said it was not a one-off oc­cur­rence and warned, “There will con­tin­ue to be sim­i­lar ex­er­cis­es through­out.”

The of­fi­cial said the hu­man re­source com­po­nent of this thrust was the most crit­i­cal as­pect, and of­fi­cers had been sup­port­ive of the height­ened crime plan.

Pub­lic asked to co­op­er­ate

TTPS Me­dia Am­bas­sador ASP Ra­jesh Lal spoke of the height­ened ef­forts when he ap­peared on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day. “It will con­tin­ue, and we in­tend to al­so get the as­sis­tance of our broth­ers and sis­ters in oth­er de­fence agen­cies,” he said.

He said joint army and po­lice pa­trols would again be seen through­out cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties.

Lal begged mem­bers of the pub­lic to un­der­stand why it was nec­es­sary to car­ry out such op­er­a­tions, and he urged peo­ple to co­op­er­ate with the TTPS. Frus­trat­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic took to so­cial me­dia to voice their up­set over the traf­fic pile-ups, which led to missed ap­point­ments and de­lays yes­ter­day. One man wrote, “What I can’t un­der­stand is we can group up & go be­hind law-abid­ing cit­i­zens go­ing about their dai­ly du­ties, but we can’t group up and go be­hind the ones dis­tress­ing cit­i­zens every day.”

An­oth­er said, “If this was one of their strate­gies to get the wrong­do­ers, they bet­ter go back to school & study be­cause they just stress­ing the ones who are try­ing to keep afloat every day.”

Crim­i­nal el­e­ments too com­fort­able—TTPSS­WA

Head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) ASP Gideon Dick­son said the pub­lic will con­tin­ue to wit­ness in­creased ac­tiv­i­ties that will be “com­mu­ni­cat­ed phys­i­cal­ly more than ver­bal­ly.”

Dick­son said the height­ened ini­tia­tives had be­come nec­es­sary as “the crim­i­nal el­e­ments there had be­come too com­fort­able, so ef­forts are be­ing made to cause those per­sons to be brought to jus­tice.”

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted, “The pub­lic will have some dis­com­fort.”

Re­gard­ing yes­ter­day’s op­er­a­tions across the coun­try and the re­sul­tant in­con­ve­nience, the TTPSS­WA head said, “We can­not want change and ex­pect for us to be do­ing things the same way to ac­quire that change. The pub­lic can’t want polic­ing, and when you get polic­ing, you com­plain about the polic­ing that you get. There will be some in­con­ve­nience to the law-abid­ing.”

Asked about the TTPSS­WA’s con­cerns re­gard­ing the in­creased de­mands be­ing placed on of­fi­cers, he said, “We are con­cerned about the men­tal, phys­i­cal, and psy­cho-so­cial well­be­ing of all of­fi­cers, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause we are of­ten the mag­ni­fy­ing glass for our abil­i­ty to op­er­ate and re­spond.”

He said the re­stric­tion on leave was a card that con­tin­ued to be used by the TTPS man­age­ment dat­ing back to De­cem­ber 2019. Dick­son said sev­er­al oc­cur­rences dur­ing that time have seen such re­stric­tions be­ing en­forced.

He said, “It is a grave con­cern to us as an as­so­ci­a­tion” be­cause the da­ta and the ju­ry are still out in terms of ef­fec­tive­ness.