Police limbo

JUNIOR BENJAMIN, 53, is the acting Commissioner of Police (CoP). Yet, Mr Benjamin’s authority to lead has been damaged by the circumstances of his appointment.

As long as the cloud of suspicion from the Erla Harewood-Christopher case looms over the service, it will hamper Mr Benjamin’s ability to serve. Parliament swiftly plugged the gap in leadership by approving his appointment on February 5.

But the crisis remains.

As the acting CoP, Mr Benjamin has all the legal powers of a substantive officeholder.

There is nothing to stop him from making personnel changes. There is no impediment to him signing off on expenditure. His is the office at the Police Administration Building, Port of Spain, previously occupied by Ms Harewood-Christopher.

Mr Benjamin certainly thinks so. On February 10, at his first media briefing since being appointed, he adopted a posture that suggested a belief that he is here to stay, speaking of being a “CoP for all.” He even heaped praise on his embattled predecessor, saying he stood on her shoulders and planned to build on her “excellent work.”

None of this tone-deaf rhetoric reflected the reality of his tenuous position.

We are in a situation in which there is an acting commissioner of police not because there is no substantive officeholder or because that individual is out of the country or unable to function, but because a top cop has been suspended by the Police Service Commission (PSC) amid a criminal probe – a suspension that is subject to legal challenge.

A High Court judge recently declined to block Mr Benjamin’s acting appointment, saying a vacancy in the Police Service would be untenable while the country “is plagued with high levels of reported serious crime and we continue under a state of emergency.”

Will the position change if crime abates or the SoE ends?

Given that the PSC’s January 31 letter of notification to President’s House advancing Mr Benjamin refers to the investigation of Ms Harewood-Christopher, will its position shift if that probe ends?

Is Mr Benjamin in the post until Ms Harewood-Christopher’s term comes up for review in May?

Will the acting top cop serve out a year?

Or is the post-holder here to stay until the PSC installs a commissioner, howsoever long that takes?

As the most senior police officer after Ms Harewood-Christopher, it’s hard to imagine that Mr Benjamin wasn’t informed of her arrest in advance.

Thus, he too is potentially tainted by the many disturbing questions that arise from how top officers have handled this case.

As such, the PSC must tell the country its next steps and clarify all these issues in order to safeguard whatever confidence remains in the police and the people at its helm.