Debate over body cam use, procurement continues in Parliament

A con­tin­u­a­tion of the po­lice body cam de­bate arose in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, on Fri­day, with Op­po­si­tion MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­mand­ing a clear pol­i­cy on its use from Gov­ern­ment while Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said he in­tends to bring de­tailed in­for­ma­tion to Par­lia­ment about what he de­scribed as pro­cure­ment in­con­sis­ten­cies un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Rais­ing the is­sue on the ad­journ­ment of the House, Gon­za­les, the Mem­ber for Arou­ca Lopinot and a for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, said grow­ing pub­lic con­cern over po­lice shoot­ings and al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct had in­ten­si­fied calls for manda­to­ry body cam­era use with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

He cit­ed a re­cent High Court rul­ing in which Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad urged cit­i­zens to con­tin­ue record­ing po­lice of­fi­cers and said “the manda­to­ry use of body cam­eras should be pri­ori­tised,” ar­gu­ing con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous record­ings pro­tect both of­fi­cers and the pub­lic.

Gon­za­les al­so re­ferred to ed­i­to­ri­als and pub­lic com­men­tary ques­tion­ing why cam­eras were not rou­tine­ly de­ployed fol­low­ing con­tro­ver­sial po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings. He point­ed to what he de­scribed as con­tra­dic­tions from se­nior of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing state­ments about fund­ing al­lo­ca­tions and whether of­fi­cers on school pa­trols would wear cam­eras.

“Stop the con­tra­dic­tion. Speak to the pop­u­la­tion clear­ly and co­her­ent­ly on this very im­por­tant mat­ter,” he told the House.

In his re­sponse, Alexan­der re­ject­ed claims Gov­ern­ment was op­posed to body cam­eras and said nei­ther the min­istry nor the po­lice ser­vice was against their use.

“We are not against the use of body cams,” he said.

Alexan­der said that up­on ar­riv­ing at the min­istry, of­fi­cials en­coun­tered “very un­usu­al” pur­chas­ing arrange­ments re­lat­ed to body cam­eras which were “not in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.” He said he hopes in the com­ing days or weeks to bring be­fore Par­lia­ment what he de­scribed as a “true pic­ture” of the in­con­sis­ten­cies found.

He at­trib­uted those is­sues to de­ci­sions tak­en by in­di­vid­u­als now sit­ting in the Op­po­si­tion and said Gov­ern­ment in­tends to pur­sue “the right pro­cure­ment to get the right body cam for the right price for each and every po­lice of­fi­cer.”

Sep­a­rate­ly, Alexan­der has called for a re­port in­to the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar con­tract for body cam­eras and sup­port­ing in­fra­struc­ture is­sued un­der for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

Speak­ing dur­ing a post-Car­ni­val me­dia brief­ing, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the con­tract cost about $100 mil­lion but did not give the po­lice ser­vice full con­trol of the cam­eras. He said some 1,000 cam­eras were ac­quired un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion through what he de­scribed as the im­prop­er ex­e­cu­tion of a con­tract.