Police Welfare head warns SoE taking toll on officers after two suicides

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent, ASP Ish­mael Pitt, has raised con­cern over the well-be­ing of po­lice of­fi­cers, warn­ing that the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) and sus­tained high op­er­a­tional de­mands are plac­ing in­creas­ing strain on per­son­nel.

His com­ments come in the wake of the re­port­ed sui­cides of PC Yoha­nis Joseph and Rafael Joseph this week—tragedies that have in­ten­si­fied scruti­ny of men­tal health chal­lenges with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice and the ad­e­qua­cy of ex­ist­ing sup­port sys­tems.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pitt said the pro­longed SoE has re­quired of­fi­cers to op­er­ate un­der con­tin­u­ous pres­sure, with im­pli­ca­tions for both their phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al health.

“It’s not an ide­al sit­u­a­tion for po­lice of­fi­cers to be work­ing at such ex­treme­ly de­mand­ing lev­els con­tin­u­ous­ly,” he said. “So we are con­cerned about that. And we will ask any of our of­fi­cers who are feel­ing the burnout and feel­ing over­whelmed and at lev­els of stress that could be un­bear­able, please reach out so that we can take the nec­es­sary ac­tion.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we are al­so call­ing on su­per­vi­sors to ex­er­cise that lev­el of le­nien­cy and deco­rum and cour­tesy when it comes to of­fi­cers who are un­der their charges.”

Po­lice of­fi­cers have re­mained on height­ened op­er­a­tional du­ties since the SoE was first de­clared on March 3 and lat­er ex­tend­ed twice by Par­lia­ment, most re­cent­ly for a fur­ther three months ear­li­er this month, tak­ing it to Sep­tem­ber.

De­spite these con­cerns, Pitt of­fered a pos­i­tive as­sess­ment of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s first year in of­fice.

He said the Com­mis­sion­er as­sumed lead­er­ship un­der dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances and was im­me­di­ate­ly con­front­ed with sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional chal­lenges. How­ev­er, he be­lieves Gue­var­ro has demon­strat­ed a will­ing­ness to make dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions while bal­anc­ing the in­ter­ests of the pub­lic and the rank and file.

“He did get a bap­tism of fire, but he has been able to demon­strate that he’s ca­pa­ble of mak­ing tough de­ci­sions, notwith­stand­ing it may ren­der him un­pop­u­lar,” Pitt said.

“He has al­so shown that he’s ca­pa­ble of seek­ing the pub­lic’s in­ter­est, which is of para­mount im­por­tance, and al­so the in­ter­est of his of­fi­cers. Based on what we have ob­served thus far, we are con­fi­dent that the Com­mis­sion­er is go­ing to do well go­ing for­ward, and I am cer­tain that he has the sup­port of the men and women on the ground.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice, Pitt said ear­ly signs un­der Gue­var­ro’s lead­er­ship have been en­cour­ag­ing.

Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro marked one year in of­fice on Thurs­day, hav­ing been ap­point­ed on June 17, 2025, with the ap­point­ment tak­ing ef­fect the fol­low­ing day.