TTPS probes death threats against police officer

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is warn­ing that any threat against po­lice of­fi­cers will be treat­ed with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness, as it in­ves­ti­gates a so­cial me­dia post pur­port­ed­ly by a po­lice of­fi­cer al­leg­ing he has re­ceived death threats linked to a court mat­ter.

In a video which went vi­ral yes­ter­day, a male voice claim­ing to be a po­lice of­fi­cer at­tached to the Port-of-Spain Task Force, shows a brown en­ve­lope with three 5.56 cal­i­bre bul­lets, which he claimed was left at his door.

The man, who did not give his name or show his face, said he had re­port­ed the threats at the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion.

He said dur­ing an All-Fours game at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, the pre­vi­ous night, he re­ceived a threat­en­ing mes­sage on his phone from a strange num­ber.

He claimed he and two oth­er of­fi­cers – Sam­son and Carter – were in­volved in a mat­ter which has now start­ed in court.

“In light of that, we start get­ting some threat­en­ing mes­sages. I got a mes­sage on my phone ask­ing me to drop the mat­ter or they will kill me and my fam­i­ly.

“While in the car park last night, some­body called my phone and said, ‘You’re lucky you have your three-year-old son. Oth­er­wise, you was dead tonight.’ Com­ing up the road, some­body tried to run me off the road.”

When he got to the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion, he said the per­son called again, stat­ing that he was lucky a po­lice ve­hi­cle was in front, “Oth­er­wise, you dead tonight.”

He said the next morn­ing he found the en­ve­lope, with this hand­writ­ten mes­sage: “Last warn­ing for you, Sam­son and Carter drop the court mat­ter. Last night, you get away. Next time, is shots.”

He al­leged that when he called the po­lice, a fe­male of­fi­cer told him the shift was chang­ing, and that of­fi­cers were on sick-out, so there was no one avail­able to re­spond.

In re­sponse to the video, the TTPS, in a state­ment, ad­vised that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been ini­ti­at­ed, as all re­ports of threats, in­tim­i­da­tion or at­tempts to in­ter­fere with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice are treat­ed with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness and ur­gency.

The TTPS fur­ther stat­ed that a threat di­rect­ed at a po­lice of­fi­cer who is law­ful­ly car­ry­ing out his or her du­ties is not mere­ly a threat against an in­di­vid­ual of­fi­cer but may con­sti­tute an at­tack on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, the rule of law and the in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for main­tain­ing pub­lic safe­ty and or­der.

As­sur­ing that every re­port of this na­ture is sub­ject to care­ful as­sess­ment and thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the TTPS said all rea­son­able and nec­es­sary mea­sures will be tak­en to safe­guard the af­fect­ed of­fi­cer, his fam­i­ly and the in­tegri­ty of the law en­force­ment and ju­di­cial process­es.

“The TTPS re­mains stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that of­fi­cers can per­form their law­ful du­ties free from in­tim­i­da­tion, co­er­cion or fear, and that any per­son found re­spon­si­ble for crim­i­nal acts of this na­ture will be dealt with in ac­cor­dance with the law.”

The TTPS stat­ed that the pub­lic can be as­sured that the mat­ter was re­ceiv­ing the at­ten­tion it war­rant­ed, and up­dates would be pro­vid­ed as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es and cir­cum­stances per­mit.