The code of gray

Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander seems particularly keen to be seen as tough on crime, but his assessment of a police operation that left a father and son dead in Cunupia is worrisome.

Responding to result of an alleged exchange of gunfire on a church compound, Mr Alexander declared that "They died, which is good, if they can't behave themselves."

As a former police officer and one publicly identified through his television appearances as an advocate of the definitive authority of armed officers working in the field, Mr Alexander’s position is not surprising.

During his career, he must also have been on the receiving end of gunfire and experienced the challenge of responding within the legal scope afforded an officer under attack, while being guided by the need to respond proportionately.

But Mr Alexander is now a minister in cabinet, representing the interests of the public that elected him with a duty of care to encourage his officers to preserve life.

Where is the advocacy for citizens in that statement?

Sixty people have died in police-involved shootings for 2025, double the number for the same period last year. A third of the deaths happened under the current state of emergency.

TT is expected to celebrate these extra-judicial killings as action against crime but must do so based on the accounts of uniformed officers, the survivors of these shootouts, and there is no independent record of events.

In May 2024, the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) committed to wearing body cameras during investigations and while interviewing witnesses, but the move hasn't inspired working police officers to use the recording equipment issued to them. Mr Alexander has not placed any emphasis on acquiring and using body cameras.

The PCA has never received body camera footage to assist its investigations.

Without surveillance, the police narrative tends to prevail, supported by an unspoken "code of gray" – officers supporting officers – which dilutes claims of a disproportionate response to potential threats.

In one notable incident, that narrative collided with the facts of an independent video of a police-involved triple-murder in 2020 at Juman Drive, Morvant showing one man killed with his empty hands raised.

Eight officers were charged with murder in that incident and are on bail bonds totalling $7.4 million.

Where police-involved killings are pervasive, the numbers are staggering. The Philippines leads on numbers, with 6,069 reported in 2021 for deaths solely in anti-drug operations.

The World Population Review ranks that country at 55.7 killings per million citizens. Jamaica leads the Caribbean with 47 per million followed by TT with 34 per million ranking sixth and seventh on this list.

Between "stand your ground", “one shot, one kill,” and "it's good they're dead," a dangerous embrace of the bullet as a crime solution is evolving.

But guns don't change lives; they can only end them.