CoP: 'Express report makes police job harder'

COMMISSIONER of Police Gary Griffith lambasted a local news organisation after it released a report suggesting that he physically assaulted someone during a police investigation. In the release, he called for balance, not bias, saying the organisation was quick to highlight the complaint but did not publish stories in which the complaint was recanted.

“The actions made by the CCN, more so Trinidad Express, does nothing other than make it more difficult for the TTPS to perform its duties, hence the TTPS wishes to guide CCN that whilst freedom of the press is an enshrined right, so too is the right to ensure that accurate and truthful information is given equal prominence.”

Griffith also gave a tongue-lashing to One Caribbean Media (OCM) chairman, attorney Farees Hosein. In an article pulished in Thursday’s Express, Hosein called for the commissioner to stop engaging in behaviour that causes discomfort to Express journalists.

The CoP's response to this was: “Apart from it being obvious that Mr Farees Hosein does not understand the TTPS has no obligation to answer every question by the media, it is questionable that this Commissioner of Police has been one of, if not the most accessible public official to the media.

“The TTPS finds it alarming that Mr Hosein believes that the obligation of a police officer is to be mandated to adhere to the directives made by every media representative especially when the questions asked are obviously aligned to be biased and to tarnished and undermine the TTPS.”

An Express article said a man named Cecil Junior Skeete reported to the Four Roads Police Station in Diego Martin that the commissioner had choked him and threatened his life. Subsequent articles in other newspapers have quoted the same man denying that he ever said Griffith choked or threatened him.