Trinidad Top Cop promises shake-up

(Trinidad Guardian) Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has read the ri­ot act to top rank­ing po­lice of­fi­cers say­ing a shake-up is com­ing from with­in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice in 2019.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said all po­lice of­fi­cers will be held ac­count­able.

“I am de­mand­ing a strong and vi­brant lead­er­ship by all who hold se­nior po­si­tions of au­thor­i­ty as they are all ca­pa­ble of do­ing. We would all be held ac­count­able with our per­for­mance mea­sures. There must be no weak link,” Grif­fith said.

He not­ed that crit­i­cal posts of ACP Op­er­a­tions and ACP Crime will be un­der crit­i­cal as­sess­ment.

“The peo­ple in these po­si­tions will have a big part to play in the di­rec­tion of the trans­for­ma­tion of the TTPS so that there will be bet­ter ef­fec­tive­ness in op­er­a­tions for 2019. I need to make sure that they can keep the pace that I in­tend to move at. I have a strong work­ing ex­ec­u­tive and those who can­not keep my pace will have to ei­ther lead, fol­low or get out,” Grif­fith said.

He de­nied that the trans­fer­ring of of­fi­cers had to do with a re­cent case in which valu­able ev­i­dence to con­vict an al­leged cy­ber­crime phish­er went miss­ing from un­der the noses of the po­lice. In­stead, Grif­fith said it was a con­tin­u­a­tion of the trans­fers which oc­curred un­der the Di­vi­sion­al Com­man­ders lev­el.

“There has been strate­gic re­as­sign­ments. There might be ar­eas that re­quire spe­cif­ic types of se­nior of­fi­cers deal­ing with the threats and the task at hand. There are oth­ers at the di­vi­sion­al com­man­der lev­el and the ACP’s lev­el which I will as­sess to en­sure there is the right fit,” Grif­fith said.

He added, “I in­tend to put the right hors­es for the cours­es. I plan to put the best fit in the most ap­pro­pri­ate places so that I am as­sess­ing the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of each in­di­vid­ual.”

Say­ing he planned to re­struc­ture the whole Po­lice Ser­vice, Grif­fith said this meant merg­ing some bu­reaus with oth­ers so that there will be col­lab­o­ra­tion.

He said cer­tain units will not be work­ing in iso­la­tion.

“For ex­am­ple, some units will be work­ing close­ly to­geth­er. The Fi­nan­cial In­ves­tiga­tive Unit will work with the Cy­ber Crime Unit, Fraud Squad, Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­tel­li­gence Unit,” Grif­fith said.

He not­ed that the Wit­ness Pro­tec­tion Unit and Child Pro­tec­tion Unit will work clos­er as well.

Grif­fith said he in­tend­ed to re­vamp foot pa­trols so that of­fi­cers will be out­side on pa­trols rather than be at their desks all the time.

Asked whether the Cy­ber Crime Unit will be bet­ter re­sourced in the new year be­cause of the in­crease in on­line fraud, Grif­fith said yes. He said this was part of the agree­ment he signed with Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for the City of New York, James O’Neil in the Unit­ed States two weeks ago.

Grif­fith said the agree­ment fa­cil­i­tates the pre­ven­tion of crim­i­nal acts re­lat­ing to il­lic­it drug traf­fick­ing, ter­ror­ism, hu­man traf­fick­ing, cy­ber­crime, mon­ey laun­der­ing and arms smug­gling.

The agree­ment will fa­cil­i­tate co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas of ex­change of in­tel­li­gence and in­for­ma­tion, train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion as well as shar­ing of best prac­tices for law en­force­ment per­son­nel.

“I have an ex­cel­lent Cy­ber Crime Unit right now and we want to have greater im­prove­ment in tech­nol­o­gy, train­ing and tools. I will push for­ward to ex­pand the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the unit so that we will crack down on child pornog­ra­phy, skim­ming and phish­ing,” Grif­fith added.