TTPS says ZOSOs documents circulating fake

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has de­nied au­thor­ship of doc­u­ments cir­cu­lat­ing on­line that claim to out­line zone pri­ori­ti­sa­tion for polic­ing and in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions. It said the ma­te­r­i­al did not orig­i­nate from the Po­lice Ser­vice and was not ap­proved or dis­trib­uted through any of­fi­cial chan­nel.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly states that these doc­u­ments were not cre­at­ed, sanc­tioned, or dis­sem­i­nat­ed by the or­gan­i­sa­tion, nor are we aware of their ori­gin,” the state­ment said.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Po­lice Ser­vice ad­dressed re­ports and so­cial me­dia posts that have shared the doc­u­ments, stat­ing that the in­for­ma­tion does not re­flect in­ter­nal pol­i­cy or op­er­a­tional plan­ning. The or­gan­i­sa­tion said it be­came aware of the cir­cu­la­tion through pub­lic and me­dia at­ten­tion.

The Po­lice Ser­vice called on mem­bers of the pub­lic and me­dia en­ti­ties to re­frain from shar­ing in­for­ma­tion that has not been ver­i­fied. It said the cir­cu­la­tion of such ma­te­r­i­al could lead to mis­un­der­stand­ing and af­fect pub­lic con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment op­er­a­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion on polic­ing and in­tel­li­gence ac­tiv­i­ty will con­tin­ue to be com­mu­ni­cat­ed through es­tab­lished chan­nels. The Po­lice Ser­vice said up­dates on op­er­a­tions will be is­sued where ap­pro­pri­ate and in keep­ing with its com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy and pub­lic en­gage­ment. It al­so ac­knowl­edged the role of the pub­lic in re­port­ing con­cerns and seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on is­sues re­lat­ed to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and polic­ing.

The Po­lice Ser­vice thanked the pub­lic for its co­op­er­a­tion and vig­i­lance. It en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to re­ly on state­ments is­sued di­rect­ly by the or­gan­i­sa­tion for ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to polic­ing mat­ters and to ver­i­fy re­ports be­fore shar­ing them fur­ther.

The re­lease did not in­di­cate whether any in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to the source of the doc­u­ments or how they en­tered cir­cu­lat