Tag Archives: TTPS

On 3 February 2021, as Trinidad and Tobago was gripped by a search for 23-year-old clerk Andrea Bharatt, blogger Rhoda Bharath—a UWI lecturer—sounded an alarm over the behaviour of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), then headed by Police Commissioner Gary Griffith, in the discharging of its duties. “Oh …

“[…] The police, they’re going after the young kids on the streets…the big fish don’t come to do deals directly. “The big fish are […] politicians and businessmen; them is the men, and they’re the ones who are bringing the drugs in, too. Dem is the men who behind the …

When Erla Harewood-Christopher assumed the role of acting commissioner of police in December 2022 following the vacation of her predecessor, McDonald Jacob, I was optimistic that things would change and our approach to crime would improve. Her official appointment in February 2023 as our country’s first female commissioner of police …

Last week’s column was forced to return to what I assert is the government’s unwillingness to take any responsibility for the prevailing rampant killings, particularly for the easy passage of guns and drugs into our island for well over a decade. If not government agencies, who else is expected to …

“The area is dominated by gangs. Thus far, the police have had only limited success in eradicating the gangs. “It can be done, but it requires a multipronged approach, including all aspects of the state’s possible response; most of all, a genuine desire (my emphasis) on the part of the …

“A lawless, indisciplined and corrupt nation cannot fight crime.” Pastor Clive Dottin, The People’s Roundtable, January 2024. At The People’s Roundtable, Pastor Dottin discussed the distinction between a street military revolt and a spiritual revival. He saw the nation as having a decision: either we allow the streets to be …

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” Milan Kundera, a Czech and French novelist, in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979). The book discusses how people tolerate the torture and suffering over which they have no control. These lessons apply to us as …

“[…] Dr Paul Richards is not only an independent senator, but also a very experienced journalist. He ought to know better. “He has an obligation to provide the evidence [against Senior Superintendent Roger Alexander from the TV6 Beyond the Tape programme], or publicly withdraw his statement and apologise…” The following …

A former Trinidad and Tobago National Under-17 team captain intends to clear his name after being informally identified as a person of interest in the shooting of 21-year-old Sapphire David. According to the police report, a gunman shot David on the right side of her chest in La Brea on …

A reader, who enjoys the historical perspective contained in many of these columns, asked me recently whether there is a program that I use to source those of my columns written many years ago. The answer is that as a weekly columnist writing in the information age for 21 years, …

There is a discernible season, which commences on Independence Day on 31 August and ends when the annual National Awards Ceremony takes place on the evening of Republic Day on 24 September, which falls next Sunday. That period may be categorised as a season because it characterized by certain events …

The latest responses of the current Government and the Commissioner of Police to the crippling wave of murder and violent crime are the lame products of two decades of denial and a current desperation to say anything that will deflect the pressing questions about crime. The hard but unpleasant truth …