Union backs CoP’s call not to suspend officers in fatal St Augustine police shooting

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) says it is in full sup­port of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion not to sus­pend the of­fi­cers who were in­volved in the fa­tal shoot­ing of Val­sayn res­i­dent Joshua Sama­roo.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so says its mem­bers are not op­posed to the use of body cam­eras by of­fi­cers, they are con­cerned about the lim­i­ta­tions these elec­tron­ic de­vices can present in the field.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the de­ci­sion by Gue­var­ro not to sus­pend any of the of­fi­cers in­volved the fa­tal shoot­ing, TTPSS­WA pres­i­dent, act­ing ASP Ishamel Pitt, said, “He is act­ing based on pol­i­cy and le­gal di­rec­tions, and we are in full sup­port of his de­ci­sion at this point in time.”

Asked how cru­cial the use of body cam­eras were for of­fi­cers, es­pe­cial­ly fol­low­ing last week’s in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Sama­roo, Pitt stressed, “We were nev­er ad­verse to body cam­eras, but we are con­cerned about the lim­i­ta­tions of the cam­eras that have been pro­vid­ed.”

He added, “For that rea­son, you may find at times that some of­fi­cers may not be in pos­ses­sion of the body cam­eras, or they may be in pos­ses­sion of the body cam­era at that point in time but the cam­era it­self may not be func­tion­al be­cause the bat­tery may have dis­charged.”

Claim­ing there was a cer­tain “con­no­ta­tion” that arose when­ev­er a fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing oc­curs and the is­sue of body cam­eras is brought up, he said there is an of­fi­cial pol­i­cy that gov­erns the use of body cam­eras by of­fi­cers.

He de­fend­ed his mem­bers, say­ing, “It is not a case of of­fi­cers just not us­ing the body cam­eras. Of­fi­cers do use the body cam­eras on a dai­ly ba­sis. It is not that of­fi­cers are just dis­re­gard­ing what is the pol­i­cy of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. I can tell you that body cam­eras are be­ing pro­vid­ed to what we would call front­line of­fi­cers.”

Pitt did ad­mit, though, that there may be of­fi­cers in the field who are not in pos­ses­sion of a body cam­era be­cause of cer­tain lim­i­ta­tions. He as­sured, how­ev­er, that all of­fi­cers were sen­si­tised re­gard­ing the need and use of body cam­eras.

Sama­roo, 31, a fa­ther of two who lived at Bam­boo Num­ber 1, Val­sayn, was killed by po­lice af­ter he crashed his car at the cor­ner of Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion and Dook­iesingh Street, St Au­gus­tine, on Jan­u­ary 20.

His com­mon-law wife Ka­ia Sealy, 28, was al­so shot mul­ti­ple times and re­mains paral­ysed at hos­pi­tal.

Even as they await the find­ings of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Pitt lament­ed, “Our con­cerns are that based on the pub­lic’s com­ments so far on so­cial me­dia, that those com­ments in them­selves, stand the po­ten­tial to prej­u­dice the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­cause you are al­ready plant­i­ng a seed in the pub­lic do­main based on what per­sons be­lieve and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is very much pre­ma­ture at this stage. To have that type of rhetoric tak­ing place is a bit un­fair.”

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the Sama­roo fam­i­ly, Pitt said, “Any life lost is not some­thing we can be hap­py about, nor is it some­thing we want to hap­pen.”

How­ev­er, he point­ed out, “Polic­ing is a dan­ger­ous job and is one in which per­sons have to make split-sec­ond de­ci­sions.”

Pitt said the main aim is al­ways preser­va­tion of life.

De­spite what un­fold­ed last week, Pitt said, “We are stand­ing with our of­fi­cers and we trust the process, that is the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We will be guid­ed by the find­ings but we con­tin­ue to sup­port our of­fi­cers and the CoP.”

Re­gard­ing the of­fer of coun­selling for the of­fi­cers in­volved, he said, “It is not easy to wake up one morn­ing and go to work where you end up in a shoot-out where lives are lost, and you your­self could have died, while the rest of the so­ci­ety is look­ing at you as a rogue cop...this places of­fi­cers un­der a tremen­dous amount of trau­ma and coun­selling is nec­es­sary.”

He said there was no lim­i­ta­tion in terms of the of­fer of coun­selling by the TTPS, as the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit had been man­dat­ed to pro­vide sup­port to the ag­griev­ed fam­i­lies.

Asked what he be­lieved had caused the sharp in­crease in fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings, which stood at 37 in 2024 and bal­looned to 55 in 2025, Pitt said the pro­lif­er­a­tion of il­le­gal firearms was to blame.

“I think any rea­son­able, ra­tio­nal, un­der­stand­ing mem­ber of the pub­lic would be aware that we have a pro­lif­er­a­tion of firearms and al­so firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences.

“It is no se­cret that per­sons are not afraid to en­gage law en­force­ment, and un­for­tu­nate­ly, we at times have to make un­pop­u­lar de­ci­sions but it is nec­es­sary in terms of pre­serv­ing our lives and that of mem­bers of the pub­lic, so we trust that as time goes on, per­sons will be much more co­op­er­a­tive with law en­force­ment so we don’t have these dead­ly en­coun­ters.”

He added, “Clear­ly, we have a vi­o­lent so­ci­ety, but we are ap­peal­ing to mem­bers of the pub­lic to please co­op­er­ate. To my of­fi­cers, I am ap­peal­ing to ex­er­cise the high­est amount of safe­ty prac­tices and con­sid­er self-preser­va­tion as your num­ber one pri­or­i­ty,” he end­ed.

For­mer CoP: Why aren’t of­fi­cers wear­ing body cams?

For­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day raised ques­tions about why body cam­eras pur­chased dur­ing his tenure were not be­ing used by po­lice of­fi­cers, main­tain­ing they are a mea­sure of ac­count­abil­i­ty that can pre­vent ex­ces­sive force and pro­tect of­fi­cers from un­war­rant­ed al­le­ga­tions.

In a What­sApp video post, Grif­fith dis­missed claims that body cam­eras were need­ed for all of­fi­cers – ar­gu­ing that 1,200 cam­eras pur­chased dur­ing his tenure are suf­fi­cient for the 7,000-strong work­force.

Grif­fith said of­fi­cers con­duct­ing pa­trols, road­blocks, op­er­a­tions and ex­e­cut­ing war­rants should be the ones out­fit­ted with body cam­eras. This, he claimed, could help to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence in the TTPS.

He con­firmed he had im­ple­ment­ed stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures re­quir­ing of­fi­cers to sign for, use and re­turn cam­eras dur­ing his tenure. He said the cam­era footage could then be checked to en­sure the of­fi­cers’ com­pli­ance. Grif­fith de­mand­ed to know what had be­come of this pol­i­cy and why it was not be­ing en­forced.

Mean­while, New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV) Fuad Abu Bakr in­sist­ed, “There must be ac­count­abil­i­ty. I would like to re­it­er­ate that the peo­ple of T&T sup­port the po­lice in do­ing what is right. There­fore, we stand strong­ly against the ac­tions of rogue of­fi­cers who vi­o­late the rights of cit­i­zens and erode pub­lic trust.”

Say­ing life is sa­cred, he added, “On the face of it, this seems very wrong, rem­i­nis­cent of the Mor­vant three and oth­er in­no­cent lives tak­en in cold blood. The cas­es where ques­tion­able deaths oc­cur at the hands of the TTPS are too many to men­tion.”

Warn­ing that the dif­fi­cult fight against crime was not a free pass for ex­tra­ju­di­cial ac­tions, he said, “This is an im­por­tant junc­ture where we have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cor­rect abuse and save lives by in­sist­ing on ac­count­abil­i­ty. Stronger safe­guards for the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion must be put in place.”

He too called for the manda­to­ry and con­tin­u­ous use of body cam­eras and dash cam­eras by all law en­force­ment.

And as this roll-out takes place, he said of­fi­cers with crit­i­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties should be pri­ori­tised. He al­so called for of­fi­cers to be re­trained as a sub­cul­ture needs to be re­formed.

Fa­tal Po­lice Shoot­ings

2023: 39

2024: 37

2025: 55

Vic­tims of fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings

2023: 45

2024: 54

2025: 68