1 week Ago
With four people shot dead by police officers in one day, the first order of business for the next administration is to enforce discipline and transparency in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS). Last Friday, three people were killed by police in Trinidad and one in Tobago. The public has no way of knowing the true circumstances of these killings as not one incident was recorded on the body cameras police officers are supposed to be wearing.
The officers involved have their story and people who knew the victims have another. In the Tobago incident, for example, the police say an officer on duty approached a man who was wanted for several offences. The man pulled a knife and a cutlass and attempted to stab the officer, who shot him.
But a resident of the area says the officer was not in uniform, was not driving a marked police vehicle and, while the man did resist, he was already in handcuffs when he was shot. “He is a thief, everyone know him as a thief,” the witness told the Express, “but he is a man go thief people coconut, oranges, but he eh deserve that. He break in the policeman house last night, so this policeman come for this man.
” Now, many people might say such pests deserve to be killed. Citizens are rightly fed up with crime. But police officers who take the law into their own hands pose a greater threat than criminals.
Indeed, it is not even a given that the police are containing crime by killing suspected and known criminals. According to the police, one of the men killed on Friday was linked to several murders, extortion, and gun-running. He was the first individual arrested under the state of emergency but was released when it ended, due to lack of evidence.
So, when the police say he was a “known criminal”, they are also admitting that they were not competent enough to gather proof of that. Now consider a scenario where police target gang leaders, not because they are trying to reduce crime, but because they have been paid by another gang to take out a rival. After all, certain gangs are raking in millions of dollars from drug trafficking and State contracts.
Is it beyond possibility that some officers would succumb to bribery? A useful start would be firing officers who disobey orders to use bodycams when out on patrol where they are likely to encounter armed criminals. The manifesto of the People’s National Movement (PNM) addresses the issue, promising to “Establish mandatory minimum sentences for abuse of power, corruption, and dereliction of duty” in the TTPS. The United National Congress (UNC) is silent on police abuses, but does promise to “Restructure social programmes that have become gang and criminal activity havens”.
If the next administration does not take stern action on these fronts, the Police Service could all too easily degenerate into another gang plaguing the country..
