Griffith: Security threat should not have been disclosed

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

For­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice (CoP) Gary Grif­fith says the dis­clo­sure of a height­ened threat tar­get­ing se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials has in­creased pub­lic fears and will on­ly fur­ther harm this coun­try’s im­age in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Ad­mit­ting Wednes­day’s an­nounce­ment by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie was “alarm­ing,” Grif­fith wants to know why the in­for­ma­tion was made pub­lic.

Dur­ing a sit­ting of the Low­er House last Fri­day, Je­re­mie said a mem­ber of a Bel­mont gang had sparked a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent which re­quired in­creased se­cu­ri­ty for cer­tain Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Seek­ing to un­der­stand the ra­tio­nale for Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to give the AG per­mis­sion to dis­close the in­fo in Par­lia­ment, Grif­fith chal­lenged the CoP to say what na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols were fol­lowed and to high­light where it was stat­ed that such in­for­ma­tion had to be made pub­lic.

“There is no pro­to­col that states that every sin­gle time there is a threat, you need to make it known to the pub­lic,” he un­der­scored, crit­i­cis­ing the es­tab­lished prac­tice of how in­for­ma­tion was re­leased by se­nior of­fi­cials of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“This has been a prob­lem even be­fore my­self as com­mis­sion­er and af­ter, where se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers seem not to un­der­stand that there are cer­tain things you have to give to the pub­lic on a need-to-know ba­sis.”

Grif­fith, who held the post of CoP from 2018-2021, in­sist­ed, “The pub­lic did not need to know this.”

Re­call­ing sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions dur­ing his tenure, he re­vealed, “What I did was ei­ther neu­tralise the threat, or to pro­vide prop­er se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms to pre­vent the threats from be­ing im­ple­ment­ed. That is what the CoP should have done.”

He said the an­nounce­ment by Je­re­mie has on­ly in­ten­si­fied pub­lic fears, whilst si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly mag­ni­fy­ing the po­ten­tial fall­out for T&T on the world stage.

“It can very well af­fect our in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion. It can cause se­ri­ous con­cerns in trav­el ad­vi­sories, and you can now vir­tu­al­ly tip off the same crim­i­nal el­e­ments for them to be aware now that you now know ex­act­ly what their in­ten­tion is,” he stat­ed.

He added, “That it served no pur­pose, it has now caused, prob­a­bly, a height­ened con­cern of the fear of crime through­out the coun­try be­cause if it is that they can tar­get se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials...then who am I as an av­er­age cit­i­zen?”

He urged se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers to un­der­go prop­er train­ing on ac­cept­ed in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices.

“All that the se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers need to do is do their bloody job. Neu­tralise the threat and/or make sure that the per­sons who were be­ing threat­ened are prop­er­ly se­cured. That is all that was re­quired.”

De­spite these sen­ti­ments, Grif­fith com­mend­ed those in charge of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, as he said the move by crim­i­nal el­e­ments to harm se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials meant they were do­ing some­thing right.

Mean­while, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer, act­ing ASP Owie Rus­sell, said they have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the coun­try’s heads of state and gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Rus­sell re­as­sured the pub­lic that the TTPS was vig­i­lant in the wake of the lat­est claim by the AG of a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat to Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

He said, “Once the in­for­ma­tion was brought to the com­mis­sion­er, I am cer­tain that the com­mis­sion­er would have ac­ti­vat­ed all pro­to­cols and nec­es­sary mea­sures to en­sure the safe­ty of not on­ly the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans but those who would have been in the vicin­i­ty of that area.”

Rus­sell re­mind­ed per­sons, “Trinidad is no stranger to par­tic­u­lar things com­ing out of 1990, so when it comes to threats like that, of course, we will ac­ti­vate all pro­to­cols and we do have a strin­gent se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­col al­ready in place when the Par­lia­ment, and the Cab­i­net and Sen­ate is sit­ting, and height­ened is just a few more things cause we al­ready have plan, plan A, plan B and plan C.”

Rus­sell de­clined to com­ment when pressed for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the threat it­self, and to whom it had been di­rect­ed.

How­ev­er, he as­sured, “We al­ways try and put all mea­sures in place.”