RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Spe­cial units with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will soon be equipped with body cam­eras.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said yes­ter­day that dur­ing a meet­ing with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Gary Grif­fith, he was told that the units in­clude the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT), the In­ter-Agency Task Force and Guard and Emer­gency Branch.

“They are go­ing to be some of the next units to be pro­vid­ed with body cam­eras by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and ad­min­is­tra­tive arm of the Po­lice Ser­vice.”

Speak­ing on the is­sue, Grif­fith said did not think there would be any ob­jec­tion to body cam­eras as they will be equipped to pro­tect the of­fi­cers.

“The body cam­eras will now de­fend my po­lice of­fi­cers when they are wrong­ful­ly ac­cused,” Grif­fith said.

Of­fi­cers of SORT are among those now sub­ject to an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the deaths of two sus­pects in the An­drea Bharatt kid­nap­ping and mur­der.

The min­is­ter, mean­while, main­tains that no ex­ter­nal agen­cies are need­ed for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the deaths of the two sus­pects in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt, An­drew Mor­ris and Joel Bal­con.

The two men died while in po­lice cus­tody.

Young ad­dressed a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day and re­spond­ed to calls made by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (LATT) to bring in for­eign in­ves­ti­ga­tors to en­sure that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is en­tire­ly in­de­pen­dent.

Young said he is well aware that Mor­ris and Bal­con passed away while un­der po­lice re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“As I’ve al­ways said as the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, it is my po­si­tion that no one is above the law.”

“There should nev­er be a cov­er-up and every­one is sub­ject to the pa­ra­me­ters of the law,” he added.

Young said if there are video record­ings of what is al­leged to have tak­en place with Mor­ris while in po­lice cus­tody, he ex­pects who­ev­er is in pos­ses­sion of those record­ings will take it to the prop­er au­thor­i­ties for prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He said he had a meet­ing with Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith and the three act­ing deputies – Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob, Bev­er­ly Lewis, and Joanne Archie – to ask them and get an ac­count on the al­le­ga­tions.

“As the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and a gov­ern­ment, I will nev­er en­cour­age or con­done any law­less­ness. So from my meet­ing this morn­ing with the CoP and three act­ing deputies, I asked them what was tak­ing place with re­spect to the death of these two in­di­vid­u­als whilst in po­lice cus­tody. I was in­formed first­ly, that there was an ac­tive on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the PCA (Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty),” Young said.

“I was al­so told of the fol­low­ing steps tak­en by the TTPS;

1. The PSB is an ac­tive par­tic­i­pant in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and has al­so ap­point­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the two di­vi­sions - these gen­tle­men were the North­ern Di­vi­sion and the North East­ern Di­vi­sion - so in­ves­ti­ga­tors from those sep­a­rate di­vi­sions are al­so part. Of­fi­cers from Homi­cide have al­so been ap­point­ed to be part of the body of po­lice of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ing these in­ci­dents,” Young said.

He al­so dis­closed that as of yes­ter­day morn­ing 10-12 re­ports have al­ready been gen­er­at­ed by the po­lice com­ing out of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion which has been sent to the PCA.

“They’ve been pro­vid­ed with all re­ports com­ing out of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion by what I’ve called a mul­ti-di­vi­sion­al, mul­ti-unit in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the TTPS. I was told that po­lice of­fi­cers al­so sus­tained in­juries in the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing it. At this stage I can­not say what took place nor can I pro­vide any re­port in writ­ing.”

He said he was told by po­lice that they were not in pos­ses­sion of the videos from which the al­le­ga­tions stemmed.

“The pow­ers of the au­thor­i­ty are suf­fi­cient in my re­spect­ful opin­ion, and the PCA has the pow­er to do what we the pop­u­la­tion is re­quir­ing them to do,” he added.

Young re­it­er­at­ed that there has been ab­solute­ly no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for why the PCA isn’t the body that should car­ry out this type of in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“So at this stage, I don’t think there is any need for for­eign aid. Let’s see what the PCA does and if it has fur­ther re­quests, cause the PCA can bring peo­ple in and so on, but at this stage, there is no need for it and I was a lit­tle sur­prised to see that sug­ges­tion by the law as­so­ci­a­tion.”

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith al­so said yes­ter­day that a full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing con­duct­ed in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the deaths of sus­pects An­drew Mor­ris and Joel Bal­con while in po­lice cus­tody.