Alexander on body cameras available to TTPS: ‘We will work with what we have’

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the Gov­ern­ment will have to make do with the body cam­eras cur­rent­ly avail­able to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), as con­cerns grow over whether there are enough func­tion­ing de­vices and whether their use will be manda­to­ry dur­ing op­er­a­tions un­der the pro­posed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

The bill will per­mit po­lice of­fi­cers, as­sist­ed by mem­bers of the De­fence Force, to con­duct spe­cial op­er­a­tions in ar­eas de­clared closed. Of­fi­cers in­volved in those op­er­a­tions are ex­pect­ed to wear body cam­eras, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had de­clared on Wednes­day.

How­ev­er, the leg­is­la­tion stops short of mak­ing their use manda­to­ry. In­stead, it states that body cam­eras should be used as far as prac­ti­ca­ble, sub­ject to avail­able re­sources.

Asked yes­ter­day whether of­fi­cers would be re­quired to wear body cam­eras dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions, Alexan­der did not di­rect­ly an­swer the ques­tion. In­stead, he re­peat­ed­ly said: “We will work with what we have.”

Pressed fur­ther by Guardian Me­dia, Alexan­der point­ed to what he de­scribed as past fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, ar­gu­ing that mil­lions of dol­lars that could have been used to bet­ter equip of­fi­cers had been squan­dered.

“A cou­ple years ago, it would have been eas­i­er if the po­lice in 2020 didn’t go and take a loan for $200 mil­lion, pay $9 mil­lion for sev­en years and then at the end of the ex­pi­ra­tion pe­ri­od, have to pay back $200 mil­lion. We would have buy more body cam­eras with that,” Alexan­der said.

His com­ments came af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro dis­closed that just over 100 body cam­eras are cur­rent­ly op­er­a­tional with­in the TTPS.

Gue­var­ro said the avail­able de­vices have been as­signed to front­line of­fi­cers, but their bat­tery life re­mains a chal­lenge, with each cam­era last­ing on­ly about 90 min­utes to two hours. He al­so re­vealed that ad­di­tion­al cam­eras are be­ing pro­cured.

The Gov­ern­ment had pre­vi­ous­ly can­celled a near­ly $25 mil­lion con­tract for 3,000 body-worn cam­eras, say­ing the move would save tax­pay­ers mil­lions of dol­lars.

How­ev­er, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has chal­lenged Alexan­der’s claim re­gard­ing the al­leged $200 mil­lion loan.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said no com­mis­sion­er of po­lice has the au­thor­i­ty to in­de­pen­dent­ly se­cure such a loan on be­half of the TTPS.

“An al­le­ga­tion of this mag­ni­tude dis­cred­its the TTPS, fur­ther un­der­mines pub­lic trust in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and cre­ates the im­pres­sion that hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars may have been bor­rowed and spent with­out the pub­lic know­ing how, why or by whom,” Grif­fith said.

He called on Alexan­der to pro­vide ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate the claim.

“Is Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der be­ing mis­led? It sure­ly would ap­pear so,” Grif­fith said.

“In re­sponse to ques­tions about whether he would sup­port mak­ing body cam­eras manda­to­ry dur­ing po­lice op­er­a­tions, Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der made the ex­tra­or­di­nary claim that, in 2020, the Po­lice Ser­vice ac­quired a $200 mil­lion loan to pur­chase body cam­eras and oth­er equip­ment.

“There is one ma­jor prob­lem with that state­ment. It could not have hap­pened. No Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has the au­thor­i­ty to sim­ply bor­row $200 mil­lion on be­half of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. A com­mis­sion­er can­not walk in­to a fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, se­cure a $200 mil­lion loan and com­mit the TTPS, and by ex­ten­sion tax­pay­ers, to that debt. So be­fore we even get to whether the fig­ure is ac­cu­rate, the very premise of the al­le­ga­tion is fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed.”

Grif­fith said if Alexan­der had been pro­vid­ed with in­for­ma­tion about a $200 mil­lion loan, the min­is­ter should de­mand proof and cor­rect the pub­lic record if the claim proves in­ac­cu­rate.

He al­so cau­tioned against al­low­ing the dis­pute to over­shad­ow the broad­er is­sue of body cam­era us­age dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions.

Grif­fith urged Alexan­der to en­sure the Gov­ern­ment’s body cam­era pol­i­cy is ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed with­in the TTPS.

“Body cam­eras are not an­ti-po­lice. They pro­tect cit­i­zens, but they al­so pro­tect good po­lice of­fi­cers,” Grif­fith said. “They pro­vide ob­jec­tive ev­i­dence. They ex­pose mis­con­duct where it oc­curs and, equal­ly im­por­tant­ly, can pro­tect of­fi­cers against false al­le­ga­tions.

“This is there­fore big­ger than one min­is­ter be­ing giv­en bad in­for­ma­tion. The Min­is­ter should be ask­ing whether there are per­sons with­in the present TTPS hi­er­ar­chy who are re­sis­tant to mea­sures that in­crease ac­count­abil­i­ty and, if so, why.”