Griffith rejects PM's statement on vetting units

FORMER commissioner of police (CoP) Gary Griffith rejected statements made by the Prime Minister about establishing vetted units in the police service to weed out rogue police officers.

The Prime Minister spoke about these units at a PNM political meeting in San Fernando on Saturday.

Dr Rowley raised the matter again on Sunday during a National Security Council meeting at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann's.

In a WhatsApp reply to Newsday on Monday, Griffith described the creation of these units as senseless.

"You are going to have a vetted unit within the police service to vet police officers and then who is going to vet the vetted unit?

"When does it end?"

Griffith described Rowley comments as a sign of desperation.

"He is grasping at straws. He does not know what to do."

The CoP leads the charge in developing tactics and strategies for the police to fight crime.

Griffith said rooting out corrupt police officers in the service was taking place while he was CoP, using different units such as the Special Branch and Special Operations Response Team (SORT).

"There are certain units that will need a high degree of monitoring to make sure that there are no rogue elements."

He lamented that some of the units used to address the problem of rogue elements were shut down after he demitted office.

Griffith said some of those units were responsible for reducing crime by over 35 per cent up to August 2021.

SORT, he continued, was one of the units that was shut down, "based on one incident."

This unit, formed in November 2018, was designed along the lines of the defunct Special Anti-Crime Unit of TT (SAUTT), launched in 2004 under the PNM.

SAUTT was shut down in September 2010 under the UNC-led People's Partnership coalition government after allegations were made about the unit tapping public officials' phones.

Griffith, who was national security adviser to then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at that time, is the political leader of the National Transformation Alliance (NTA).

He said, "It's obviously political games being played, and now it's haunting him (Rowley)."

Griffith recalled the police also had systems "to allow the public to give us information." These included his personal cell phone number (482 GARY), a mobile app and online reporting. He said these systems "allowed us to find out police officers who were on the take."

Griffith added these officers were "securing drug blocks, protecting criminal elements and those persons would have been sidelined or removed.

"I also introduced the polygraph testing and drug testing for police officers."

As a result of this, he said, over 82 police officers were "disciplined, suspended, fired or even charged."

Griffith said the latter included a number of charges, including kidnapping.

When the tests were done in 2019, the Police Service Social Welfare Association (PSSWA) objected to them.

The PSSWA at that time said Griffith's intention was commendable.

But the union wanted him to provide its members with the rationale for the tests.

PSSWA president ag Insp Gideon Dickson said the union indicated there was already legislation for polygraph testing for officers to enter the service.

He added that several specialist police units also used polygraph testing to vet officers to join them.

"We support what they law states."

Dickson recalled the union objected to drug testing being mandatory for police officers.

"We indicated there was no law for drug testing and did not support same."

Griffith insisted that drug testing was mandatory under police service regulation 93.

He attributed the renewed concerns about rogue elements in the police service to the removal of safeguards implemented under him.

"So you don't need to have a vetting unit to specifically pinpoint and clean out the rogue elements. It was being done."

Griffith recalled that overtime paid to police officers was a major source of corruption.

"I reduced overtime by over $300 million."

Griffith added that he realised hundreds of police officers were claiming to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.