New CoP off to solid start

THE SPECIAL ceremony on June 17 commemorating the handover to new Commissioner of Police Allister Guevarro was what Mr Guevarro deserved and what the country needed.

It was a show of discipline and order, if not of force – highlights included barking German shepherds of the K-9 Unit marching alongside officers and horseback riders of the Mounted Branch – contrasting with the bedlam of the Parliament sitting of June 13 when Mr Guevarro emerged, somewhat miraculously, as the unanimous pick of government and opposition MPs to be this country’s newest top cop.

But matching the pomp and ceremony of this week’s event at the St James Barracks was Mr Guevarro himself, who immediately set a confident tone that departed from his immediate predecessors.

There was no obfuscation over whether he has a crime plan; he has one but will first meet with his officers. There was no mincing of words when it came to neglectful parents; he told them: “The future of our nation does not rest in your child’s school bag. It rests in your hands.”

And there was no beating around the bush when it came to rogue cops; he addressed officers telling them people could take much from them but “they can’t take your integrity – you have to give it to them.” The days of the clumsy oratory of Erla Harewood-Christopher are over.

Also behind us may well be Gary Griffith’s quarrelsome approach to the executive. In setting out his own stern views on juvenile indiscipline, the new top cop has sent a message not only to parents.

Stretching credulity somewhat, Mr Guevarro declared of school violence, “Under my watch that will never happen” and he further warned guardians, “if you cannot control your children, we, the TTPS, will confine them.” But such over-robust statements were clearly also aimed at the prime minister, for whom school violence is a matter meriting a tough approach.

Adding some wind to Mr Guevarro’s sails will be the recent supplementation of the police budget to the tune of $119 million. That figure goes some way towards cancelling last year’s decrease in the allocation for recurrent expenditure, which moved from $2.6 billion in 2024 to $2.5 billion in 2025.

Items covered in the additional spending include 67 new SUVs and a $25 million allocation to complete the rollout of nearly 4,000 body cameras to frontline officers by year-end. But non-budgetary challenges loom.

The top cop, formerly a Special Branch senior supt, faces the uphill task of restoring confidence in his 6,500 officers amid a rampant crime wave in which all – young children and old adults alike – are falling prey. He is off to a promising start. He must now prove his mettle.