I will not step down

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has no in­ten­tion of step­ping down or bow­ing out – de­spite mount­ing pub­lic calls for him to be re­moved as head of the coun­try’s lead­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing an im­promp­tu in­ter­view at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro, when con­front­ed with the on­line furore over the po­lice killing of Joshua Sama­roo and calls for him to step down over his han­dling of it, said, “There is no need to step aside.”

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to griev­ing rel­a­tives, he said, “The loss of any life is sad and re­gret­table.”

He urged the pub­lic to trust the ro­bust sys­tems in place as si­mul­ta­ne­ous and in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Sama­roo’s killing con­tin­ue, as­sur­ing that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice was co­op­er­at­ing ful­ly with the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) in the probe of the mat­ter.

In the face of push­back from the pop­u­la­tion and rel­a­tives of the de­ceased, de­mand­ing he step aside and even re­sign, he said, “There is no need to step aside.”

Sama­roo was shot dead by po­lice af­ter he crashed his car at the cor­ner of Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion and Dook­iesingh Street in St Au­gus­tine, fol­low­ing a high-speed chase that start­ed in Mal­oney on Jan­u­ary 20th. His wife, Ka­ia Sealy, was al­so shot in the in­ci­dent but has since been re­leased from hos­pi­tal and is re­cu­per­at­ing at home.

The po­lice ini­tial­ly said Sama­roo was killed in a shootout but a sub­se­quent video that was post­ed to so­cial me­dia ap­peared to show him putting both hands out­side the car be­fore he was shot by of­fi­cers.

Asked about his con­tin­ued stance not to sus­pend the of­fi­cers in­volved in the fa­tal shoot­ing, or to place them on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave for the du­ra­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Gue­var­ro re­vealed, “The of­fi­cers are no longer func­tion­ing where they were. They are not in­ter­fac­ing with the pub­lic.”

Ap­peal­ing to Sama­roo’s fam­i­ly and the pub­lic to al­low the agen­cies in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ex­tra­ju­di­cial shoot­ing to al­low it to take its course, Gue­var­ro said, “In due time, all will be re­vealed.”

He dis­missed claims that he spoke pre­ma­ture­ly and in­sist­ed his state­ments were made based on in­for­ma­tion avail­able to him.

Asked if af­ter view­ing video footage cap­tured by a res­i­dent’s se­cu­ri­ty cam­era war­rant­ed a change of heart, he said, “Hav­ing viewed that footage as well as oth­ers, there is an in­ves­ti­ga­tion cur­rent­ly un­der­way. And I will have in­for­ma­tion in my pos­ses­sion or da­ta in my pos­ses­sion that the mem­bers of the pub­lic are not privy to.”

He added, “It pains my heart that I want­ed to re­lease this in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic, but I was ad­vised against it be­cause they said legal­ly, that that would prej­u­dice the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and I don’t want to go down in his­to­ry as the per­son to have put some­thing out in­to the pub­lic that was in­im­i­cal to the in­ves­tiga­tive process. So again, I urge the pub­lic to al­low the process to take its course.”

On why he has not sent the of­fi­cers on leave, he said, “As the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es and ad­di­tion­al da­ta comes to me, then I will ex­am­ine the da­ta that is pre­sent­ed to me, and a de­ci­sion will be made at that time. But at this time, there is no in­for­ma­tion to guide or sug­gest that those of­fi­cers should be placed on sus­pen­sion ad­min­is­tra­tive­ly.”

He de­nied the de­ci­sion was a hard­line stance or an ar­ro­gant de­fence.

“The of­fi­cers are not on sus­pen­sion. They have not been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave. But as far as I can tell you, they are not cur­rent­ly func­tion­ing in the area that they were func­tion­ing in. They’re not in­ter­fac­ing with the pub­lic at this time,” he con­firmed.

He out­lined the process to be fol­lowed when­ev­er there is a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing. He said a First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cer is ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, which is an in­de­pen­dent body, al­so in­ves­ti­gate to see if there was any malfea­sance on the part of the po­lice or dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion it­self.

“With that in mind, the DPP must now give a pro­nounce­ment, and he would al­so guide the in­ves­ti­ga­tor or the in­ves­ti­ga­tions to­wards prov­ing or dis­prov­ing the facts. If it is that no one is charged crim­i­nal­ly, you know that there is still an op­tion avail­able now that has al­ways been there. In any fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing that no one is charged, there is a coro­ner’s in­quest.”

Re­gard­ing the call by Sama­roo’s rel­a­tives for him to step aside as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues, as they are wor­ried about in­ter­fer­ence and cov­er-up, the top cop stat­ed, “I have no di­rect in­volve­ment in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and there is no rea­son for me to step aside.”

He al­so wel­comed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion’s en­dorse­ment of his de­ci­sion.

“They are all part of the same pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion, where we are tak­ing an oath to pro­tect and serve the mem­bers of the pub­lic. And thus, be­ing po­lice of­fi­cers them­selves, they are well aware of some of the sit­u­a­tions that may arise that cause po­lice of­fi­cers to be placed in these very pre­car­i­ous po­si­tions.”