CoP stays mum on use of controversial Punisher patch

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has de­clined to com­ment on his use of the Pun­ish­er em­blem on his uni­form.

Asked about it dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Car­ni­val me­dia brief­ing at the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Gue­var­ro dis­missed the ques­tion as sen­sa­tion­al­ism.

“We are deal­ing here with jour­nal­ism this morn­ing, not sen­sa­tion­al­ism, right? So let us stick to Car­ni­val and all the niceties that came with it, the re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crime and all of that, not sen­sa­tion­al­ism. That has noth­ing to do with polic­ing,” he said.

When told that the badge has been as­so­ci­at­ed with ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings and could send the wrong mes­sage if worn by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gue­var­ro re­spond­ed, “So again, that is your opin­ion. And you have ex­pressed your opin­ion. And I take your opin­ion. Let’s move on. All right. Next ques­tion, please.”

How­ev­er, Gue­var­ro was seen wear­ing the patch dur­ing the Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties. Pho­tos of him with the patch on his arm were tak­en and some were post­ed on so­cial me­dia.

The Pun­ish­er is a com­ic book vig­i­lante char­ac­ter known for his vi­o­lence and ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings of those he deems de­serv­ing of it. In the com­ic book world, his char­ac­ter is known as an an­ti-hero, as his vic­tims are typ­i­cal­ly crim­i­nals.

Last Fri­day, ac­tivist Umar Ab­dul­lah threat­ened to take le­gal ac­tion against the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) if it fails to re­spond with­in 14 days to Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion to wear the patch. In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, at­tor­neys Keron Ramkhal­wan and Fay­ola Sandy al­leged that the PolSC had un­rea­son­ably de­layed ad­dress­ing the mat­ter.

Ab­dul­lah, leader of the New Wave Move­ment, first sub­mit­ted a for­mal com­plaint to the PolSC in Ju­ly last year, call­ing for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against Gue­var­ro and an or­der pre­vent­ing him from wear­ing the Pun­ish­er sym­bol on his uni­form.

The at­tor­neys said that if the PolSC does not re­spond by Feb­ru­ary 25, they will file a ju­di­cial re­view claim on Ab­dul­lah’s be­half. They al­so plan to seek an or­der of man­damus to com­pel the com­mis­sion to ini­ti­ate dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings against Gue­var­ro.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ab­dul­lah said he would con­tin­ue his cam­paign to have the CoP re­move the patch.

“If the com­mis­sion­er doesn’t seem to un­der­stand that sym­bols mat­ter… these things do send a mes­sage, they rep­re­sent some­thing and tell a sto­ry. If it’s dif­fi­cult for him to un­der­stand that, I’m go­ing to make him un­der­stand it. I’ll con­tin­ue high­light­ing this is­sue re­gard­ing the sym­bol he’s wear­ing, which is not part of the po­lice com­mis­sion­er’s uni­form,” Ab­dul­lah said.

Gue­var­ro has pre­vi­ous­ly de­fend­ed the em­blem, say­ing it was a gift from a for­eign mem­ber of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

“The patch in ques­tion was pre­sent­ed to the com­mis­sion­er dur­ing his in­volve­ment in a con­fi­den­tial mul­ti-agency in­ter­na­tion­al op­er­a­tion. Its pres­ence is not mere­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al, but em­blem­at­ic of col­lab­o­ra­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty among glob­al en­force­ment bod­ies,” he said last year.