TTPS cops earn major Caribbean policing awards

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

At a time when pub­lic con­fi­dence in polic­ing con­tin­ues to face scruti­ny across the re­gion, mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) have brought home ma­jor re­gion­al ho­n­ours af­ter emerg­ing among the Caribbean’s top law en­force­ment pro­fes­sion­als at the 40th An­nu­al Con­fer­ence of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (AC­CP) in Para­mari­bo, Suri­name.

The TTPS se­cured some of the con­fer­ence’s most pres­ti­gious awards, com­pet­ing against of­fi­cers from 25 Caribbean po­lice ser­vices, in what the or­gan­i­sa­tion de­scribed as a his­toric achieve­ment for Trinidad and To­ba­go polic­ing.

Lead­ing the re­gion­al ac­co­lades was In­spec­tor Tri­cia Smith, who was named Top Caribbean Crime Fight­er for her work in tack­ling fi­nan­cial crimes, cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tions and oth­er com­plex crim­i­nal mat­ters. Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, Smith’s in­ves­ti­ga­tions led to nu­mer­ous pros­e­cu­tions and the re­cov­ery of mil­lions of dol­lars in fraud­u­lent as­sets.

Mean­while, Sergeant Jacey Small etched his name in­to TTPS his­to­ry af­ter be­com­ing the first of­fi­cer from the ser­vice to re­ceive the re­gion­al ti­tle of Top Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Of­fi­cer.

Small was recog­nised for his lead­er­ship with­in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion be­tween 2024 and 2026, where he im­ple­ment­ed in­tel­li­gence-led and prob­lem-ori­ent­ed polic­ing ini­tia­tives tar­get­ing high-risk schools and com­mu­ni­ties. The ini­tia­tives re­port­ed­ly con­tributed to re­duc­tions in se­ri­ous and vi­o­lent crime while strength­en­ing youth en­gage­ment and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships.

The TTPS al­so cel­e­brat­ed ad­di­tion­al ho­n­ours earned by se­nior of­fi­cers at the con­fer­ence.

Su­per­in­ten­dent Arnold Lutch­man was named first run­ner-up in the cat­e­go­ry of Top Caribbean Ca­reer Move, while Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Sher­ma May­nard-Wil­son se­cured sec­ond run­ner-up in the same cat­e­go­ry.

The AC­CP Re­gion­al Recog­ni­tion Awards recog­nise ex­cel­lence in polic­ing, lead­er­ship, in­no­va­tion, crime fight­ing and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment through­out the Caribbean.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued fol­low­ing the con­fer­ence, the awardees ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rudolph Bhag­wan­deen for their con­tin­ued sup­port and con­fi­dence in their work.

The con­fer­ence brought to­geth­er se­nior law en­force­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across the Caribbean to dis­cuss re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, strength­en polic­ing part­ner­ships and share op­er­a­tional best prac­tices.

The TTPS said the awards re­flect the pro­fes­sion­al­ism, ded­i­ca­tion and in­no­va­tion of its of­fi­cers, and re­in­force the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s com­mit­ment to mod­ern polic­ing and pub­lic ser­vice ex­cel­lence through­out the Caribbean.