Griffith defends Maloney operation; accuses critics of hypocrisy

For­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish a Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zone in Mal­oney, ar­gu­ing that re­stric­tions on move­ment can be jus­ti­fied when nec­es­sary to pro­tect lives and com­bat vi­o­lent crime.

In a state­ment is­sued this morn­ing, Grif­fith ac­cused crit­ics of the op­er­a­tion of po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy, point­ing to move­ment re­stric­tions im­posed un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Grif­fith said that, while serv­ing as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, he per­son­al­ly au­tho­rised ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25,000 per­mits for es­sen­tial per­son­nel to move dur­ing the pub­lic health re­stric­tions.

These in­clud­ed mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, health­care work­ers, trans­port op­er­a­tors, en­er­gy sec­tor em­ploy­ees, util­i­ty work­ers and bak­ery em­ploy­ees.

He ar­gued that the prin­ci­ple be­hind those re­stric­tions was no dif­fer­ent from the ob­jec­tive of the cur­rent op­er­a­tion in Mal­oney.

“Then, the threat was a virus. Now, the threat is vi­o­lent crime. In both cir­cum­stances, the ob­jec­tive is to save lives,” Grif­fith said.

How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged that con­sti­tu­tion­al rights must be pro­tect­ed and said au­thor­i­ties must es­tab­lish clear arrange­ments to en­sure res­i­dents, work­ers, stu­dents and oth­er le­git­i­mate per­sons can move with­out un­nec­es­sary hard­ship.

Grif­fith al­so de­fend­ed the use of in­tel­li­gence rather than mur­der sta­tis­tics to de­ter­mine where Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zones should be es­tab­lished.

He said an area with few­er re­cent mur­ders could present a greater im­me­di­ate threat if in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ed se­ri­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty was be­ing planned.

“Polic­ing is not a num­bers game. It is an in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven op­er­a­tion,” he said.

Grif­fith ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion al­lows po­lice to re­spond quick­ly to in­tel­li­gence about il­le­gal firearms, drugs and planned crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, with­out de­lays that could al­low sus­pects to move weapons, drugs or them­selves be­fore of­fi­cers ar­rive.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that the pow­ers must not be used to jus­ti­fy ar­bi­trary search­es, in­dis­crim­i­nate stop-and-frisk ex­er­cis­es or abus­es of au­thor­i­ty.

He said op­er­a­tions must be con­duct­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ly, law­ful­ly and based on cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence.

Grif­fith al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as the fail­ure of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC), which he said was es­tab­lished at a cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$80 mil­lion to fa­cil­i­tate the con­ver­sion of in­tel­li­gence in­to co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tions.

He claimed that its ca­pa­bil­i­ties had ef­fec­tive­ly been re­duced to a 999 dis­patch func­tion, which he said was al­ready be­ing per­formed by the po­lice.

Grif­fith said a prop­er­ly func­tion­ing NOC should al­low in­tel­li­gence to be re­ceived, as­sessed and trans­lat­ed in­to im­me­di­ate op­er­a­tional ac­tion.

He main­tained that Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zones should be tem­po­rary, tar­get­ed and in­tel­li­gence-led, with ap­pro­pri­ate safe­guards for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, this is not about sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment or the op­po­si­tion. It is about pro­tect­ing in­no­cent cit­i­zens, pre­vent­ing mur­ders and en­sur­ing that law en­force­ment has the tools to con­front se­ri­ous crim­i­nal threats,” he said.

Grif­fith said the pub­lic de­served in­formed de­bate on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty rather than what he de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunism.