Criminals large and in charge

THE EDITOR: If the 500-plus murders and home invasions weren't enough evidence that the criminals are in charge and dictate the pace in this country, then Commissioner of Police Erla Harewood-Christopher's recent instruction for police officers to hand in their tactical kits surely provides incontrovertible proof.

Forget Fitzgerald Hinds as National Security Minister; forget Dr Rowley as Prime Minister and head of the National Security Council. The criminals are large and in charge.

Surely this must be the case, for which group is so powerful as to force such a fundamental change as instructed by the commissioner?

Every policeman and woman, once not assigned to four specific units in the TTPS, have been mandated to surrender their tactical kits to the service by a specific date or face a host of internal disciplinary sanctions.

But why? Simply because criminals have infiltrated the very organisation that exists to ensure law and order in a democratic society, the TTPS?

Criminals, for quite some time, have had easy access to police-issued clothing and, recently, even marked police vehicles with which to conduct their criminal enterprise.

It is a mockery to every law-abiding citizen to see their tax dollars go towards the purchase of police kits and police vehicles to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, only to be used in crimes, especially serious ones including home invasions, kidnapping and murder.

It is a slap to the face of every law-abiding citizen to see criminals parading as police, or police parading as criminals, as they prey on an unsuspecting citizenry.

The CoP's edict was not borne out of policy change, but rather a need to appear to be doing something, anything, to stem the embarrassing and depressing flow of police-type uniforms being front and centre in major crimes.

But does this now mean the end of police-aided crimes?

Who is to say the bandit, kidnapper and hitman won't continue their nefarious "trade" with the standard blue and grey uniforms of the TTPS now that the tactical kits are harder to come by?

Hypothetically speaking, if there is an explosion of crimes being committed by criminals clad in the grey and blue attire of the TTPS, would a new instruction be issued that all officers surrender their regulation grey and blue kits?

Simply asking police officers to surrender their tactical kits is not the "magic" bullet that would end the scourge of police-aided crimes.

This move is at best a knee-jerk reaction to recent crimes where people would have lost their freedom of movement, and in one case their life, at the hands of people clad in what looks like police-issued clothing and driving what appears to be TTPS-provided vehicles.

At worst, it reeks of a sense of hopelessness and helplessness by the executive members, who appear to be grasping at straws in an effort to clean up the service of its rotten eggs.

An overhaul of the TTPS, in terms of more stringent and effective checks and balances in the recruitment process and in the conduct of day-to-day duties of officers are sorely needed to rid the TTPS of rogue elements.

LEE MERRICK

San Fernando