EPA head slams PM’s response to officer’s killing

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son has crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­sponse to the killing of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer Anusha Ever­s­ley, de­scrib­ing her state­ment to the na­tion as “dis­ap­point­ing”.

Richard­son said the Prime Min­is­ter’s at­tempt to dis­tin­guish be­tween a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) of­fi­cer and a Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS) of­fi­cer cre­at­ed the im­pres­sion that she was seek­ing to di­min­ish the role and val­ue of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice.

Speak­ing dur­ing a Face­book Live dis­cus­sion with the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), Richard­son posit­ed:

“I am ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the re­sponse by the Prime Min­is­ter to what is hap­pen­ing. That is a frontal at­tack on law en­force­ment, be­cause sim­ply put, the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice are law en­force­ment.”

He added: “We are in a State of Emer­gency, and these per­sons are al­leged to have de­cid­ed that they can do this kind of crime. What is the re­sponse we got? Well, it is not re­al­ly the TTPS, it is the TTMPS. All of that is wa­ter un­der the bridge, be­cause we have about 60 firearms and about 4,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion out­side there.”

On Sun­day evening, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the in­ci­dent at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion was not an ex­ter­nal at­tack on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces, but an in­ter­nal breach with­in the TTMPS.

The PM em­pha­sised that the TTPS is sep­a­rate from the TTMPS, and its of­fi­cers were not in­volved. She added the TTPS and the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty will sup­port the TTMPS and the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ef­forts to re­cov­er stolen items.

Richard­son said mu­nic­i­pal po­lice have the same ex­pec­ta­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as TTPS of­fi­cers.

“And if we have a lead­er­ship that is say­ing to us that, okay, it is all right for that to hap­pen be­cause it didn't hap­pen, that is, of course, di­min­ish­ing the val­ue of the work that the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice do. And it does not give the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, or even the state po­lice, the full con­fi­dence that the state po­lice val­ue your work, and the politi­cians do not val­ue your work that you do to pro­tect who­ev­er, what­ev­er, wher­ev­er you are.”

The EPA Pres­i­dent said mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers have the same pow­ers as TTPS of­fi­cers.

Richard­son lament­ed what he called a di­vi­sive po­lit­i­cal cul­ture that trick­les down in­to a lack of con­fi­dence be­tween the pub­lic and law en­force­ment.

“Re­mem­ber, at one point in time, there was an at­tempt be­tween the PNM and the UNC to have these joint meet­ings, and then there was a whole thing about who brings in who, and I don't want this one to come. So, when peo­ple see that, do you think that peo­ple are go­ing to be en­cour­aged to come out and call the po­lice and to en­gage? No, be­cause the politi­cians have not got­ten it right. They have been en­gag­ing in a kind of rhetoric that does not en­cour­age peo­ple.”

Richard­son be­lieves what took place at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion was not a crime of con­ve­nience but was care­ful­ly planned over a pe­ri­od of time.

He said this rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about how of­fi­cers are re­cruit­ed, as he be­lieves the in­ci­dent is an­oth­er warn­ing that there are crim­i­nals among the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

“When our al­lied of­fi­cers were killed in the Pen­ny­wise shoot­ing, what came out af­ter was there was a sol­dier, a young sol­dier who had them in the for­est train­ing with these high-pow­ered weapons. So, there are a lot of per­sons who come from the army, come from the po­lice, come from pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty, with all this knowl­edge out­side there and de­cid­ing to go the crim­i­nal way.”

Richard­son added: “This now is a fright­en­ing thing that you have these per­sons who would have been mu­nic­i­pal po­lice and had that crim­i­nal in­tent enough to stran­gle and use blunt force trau­ma against one of their own and take a hell of a lot of am­mu­ni­tion and have it out­side there.”