Ex-top cop claims government frustrated by top cop

FORMER commissioner of police Gary Griffith has said "dinosaurs" are now in charge of the police service.

He was commenting after top cop Erla Harewood-Christopher sat before Parliament's Joint Select Committee (JSC) on National Security on Wednesday.

"If you could see the way the questions are being asked, it is obvious that the Government is totally frustrated with her.

"Some of the answers...I am shocked," Griffith said as he lamented the police top brass criticising the use of mobile scanners. He said these were instrumental in cutting crime globally.

"It shows the dinosaur era of senior officers in the police service. Mobile scanners that can actually be able to pinpoint and find weapons in vehicles, they find that is not necessary."

He also lamented the state of online reporting of crimes to the police.

"We had the online reporting and the question was asked, 'Is it still on?' How many people in this country have ever been involved in putting online reports since I left as commissioner of police? For the last two years, I think it would have been virtually nonexistent."

He alleged the police did not even have a team to monitor online reporting of crime.

"It is not even being promoted."

Griffith claimed he had made major technological strides for reporting crime to the police, but these had been removed when he demitted office.

"We had an SOS that was put on your phone and if you had an emergency you press SOS and the police would respond. They removed that.

"We had the police app. They removed that after I left."

Griffith said that was one of the biggest apps in the country but it was removed by those "totally fearful" of the technology used under him as commissioner.

"So it shows that the individuals who were on that committee are total dinosaurs, totally fearful of the technology that was used before, and they removed it."

The former top cop accused the senior police officers, including Harewood-Christopher, of "shadow-boxing" in an effort to ignore hard questions put to them by the JSC, which is chaired by Port of Spain South MP, attorney Keith Scotland.

One of the issues JSC member Independent Senator Paul Richards raised was whether the TTPS was happy with the manner and content of the Beyond the Tape crime talk show aired on CCN TV6 and co-hosted by Snr Supt Roger Alexander and journalist Marlan Hopkinson, to which Harewood-Christopher replied no, adding that the show was under review.

Newsday sought the views of Alexander moments after the JSC meeting ended at 5 pm on Wednesday, but he opted not to comment on the basis that he had not listened to the JSC proceedings, especially when the issue of the programme was raised by Senator Richards.