Protesters move to Guevarro’s office amid calls for CoP to resign

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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As calls in­ten­si­fy for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to re­sign, there are warn­ings that in­creased na­tion­wide protests could be loom­ing if he con­tin­ues to ig­nore the pop­u­la­tion’s cries.

This, from First Wave Move­ment leader Umar Ab­dul­lah, who con­tin­ues to crit­i­cise the CoP’s han­dling of the Jan­u­ary 20 fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo in St Au­gus­tine. The in­ci­dent left Sama­roo’s com­mon-law wife Ka­ia Sealy, 28, paral­ysed.

In a let­ter to Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day, ti­tled “De­mand for Ac­count­abil­i­ty, Re­form, and Your Res­ig­na­tion Com­mis­sion­er,” Ab­dul­lah said, “Your re­fusal to sus­pend or de­tain the of­fi­cers in­volved, and your de­ci­sion in­stead to pro­vide coun­selling while al­low­ing them to con­tin­ue armed du­ty, is in­de­fen­si­ble.”

Ab­dul­lah said demon­stra­tions would ex­pand in­to com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try, if what he de­scribed as a lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty and lead­er­ship with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) per­sists.

“You are go­ing to see a height­ened in­crease in the protest ac­tions through­out T&T. There is in­ten­tion to go to in­to every com­mu­ni­ty and to have a protest cam­paign. We are go­ing to con­tin­ue to pres­sure the agen­cies to re­spond,” he said.

In a one-man protest out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing which he ripped to shreds a pic­ture of the Pun­ish­er sym­bol which Gue­var­ro some­times wears on his uni­forms, Ab­dul­lah sought to as­sure the CoP that his res­ig­na­tion would “not be viewed as de­feat or em­bar­rass­ment.”

In­stead, he ad­vised, “It should be seen as an act of moral courage, an ac­knowl­edge­ment that this mat­ter is big­ger than you, big­ger than the TTPS, and big­ger than any sin­gle of­fice.

“By step­ping aside, you would al­low for in­de­pen­dent in­quiry, re­store pub­lic trust, and give Trinidad and To­ba­go a chance to heal. This would be a vic­to­ry for the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims, and for every cit­i­zen who still be­lieves in jus­tice.”

He claimed Gue­var­ro’s con­tin­ued re­fusal to sus­pend or place the of­fi­cers re­spon­si­ble on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave was tan­ta­mount to ex­pos­ing “cit­i­zens to fur­ther risk.”

In­sist­ing on a pub­lic apol­o­gy to the fam­i­lies of Sama­roo and Sealy, Ab­dul­lah added, “Your res­ig­na­tion, framed as a step to­ward re­form, is not a dis­grace.”

Fail­ing this, he threat­ened, “If you re­main in of­fice, pub­lic trust will col­lapse fur­ther, protests will es­ca­late, and in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny will in­ten­si­fy. If you re­sign, you will be re­mem­bered as the Com­mis­sion­er who chose coun­try over ego, who recog­nised that jus­tice is larg­er than any sin­gle man, and who gave Trinidad and To­ba­go a chance to re­build faith in its in­sti­tu­tions.”

Claim­ing the TTPS was yet to con­tact the fam­i­lies of the young cou­ple, Ab­dul­lah lament­ed, “That is very sad in­deed in this coun­try. We have a sit­ting Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice who does not know how to re­spond and how to treat the pub­lic.”

Re­fer­ring to Sun­day’s peace­ful protest at Wood­ford Square where the ri­ot squad was de­ployed, he said the CoP had dri­ven past them but failed to stop.

“That ap­proach on­ly in­creas­es mis­trust and fur­ther erodes pub­lic con­fi­dence in the po­lice ser­vice,” he said.

Ze­ro­ing in on the fa­tal shoot­ing in which Sama­roo was seen wav­ing his hands out­side the crashed car in a ges­ture of sur­ren­der, Ab­dul­lah em­pha­sised, “When a hand is out the win­dow, that is sur­ren­der. Of­fi­cers are trained to de-es­ca­late, not con­tin­ue fir­ing.”

De­spite con­fir­ma­tion by se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers that the TTPS was co­op­er­at­ing ful­ly with the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), he said they had been told this was not true and that, “full co­op­er­a­tion from the po­lice ser­vice has not been forth­com­ing.”

On the is­sue of pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to re­strict the record­ing and shar­ing of po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty, he said they were not in agree­ment.

“This is where the si­lence ends. T&T is not a bat­tle­field. Our peo­ple are not en­e­my com­bat­ants.”

Hav­ing writ­ten to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) ear­ly on re­quest­ing Gue­var­ro be dis­ci­plined for in­clud­ing the Pun­ish­er patch as part of his uni­form, Ab­dul­lah main­tained, “This is not part of the uni­form. This is not the sig­nal you ought to be send­ing to the pop­u­lace of this coun­try.

“We warned the pop­u­la­tion that this was go­ing to end in blood. Look at what hap­pened. The po­lice of­fi­cers are look­ing at your re­spons­es. They are look­ing at your ac­tions, and they are look­ing at the sig­nals. They are read­ing the sig­nals that you are send­ing to them, and they are re­spond­ing ac­cord­ing­ly.”