Ex top cop claims Govt frustrated by top cop – Griffith Dinosaurs running TTPS
over 1 year in TT News day
Former commissioner of police Gary Griffith said "dinosaurs" are now in charge of the police service.
This as he commented after top cop Erla Harewood-Christopher sat before Parliament's Joint Select Committee (JSC) on National Security on Wednesday.
"If you could see the way the questions are being asked, it is obvious that the Government is totally frustrated with her.
"Some of the answers...I am shocked," Griffith said as he lamented the police top-brass criticising the use of mobile scanners.
He said these were instrumental in cutting crime globally.
"It shows the dinosaur-era of senior officers in the police service. Mobile scanners that can actually be able to pinpoint and find weapons in vehicles, they find that is not necessary."
He also lamented the state of online reporting of crimes to the police.
"We had the online reporting and the question was asked, 'is it still on?' How many people in this country have ever been involved in putting online reports since I left as commissioner of police? For the last two years, I think it would have been virtually non-existent."
He alleged the police did not even have a team to monitor online reporting of crime. "It is not even being promoted."
Griffith claimed he had made major technological strides for reporting crime to the police, but these had been removed when he demitted office.
"We had an S-O-S that was put on your phone and if you had an emergency you press S-O-S and the police would respond. They removed that.
"We had the police app, they removed that after I left."
Griffith said that was one of the biggest apps in the country. He said it was removed by those "totally fearful" of the technology used under him as commissioner.
"So it shows that the individuals who were on that committee are total dinosaurs, totally fearful of the technology that was used before, and they removed it."
The former top cop accused the senior police officers, including Harewood-Christopher, of "shadow-boxing" in an effort to ignore hard questions put to them by the JSC chaired by Port of Spain South MP and attorney Keith Scotland.
One of the issues raised by JSC member and Independent Senator Paul Richards was if the TTPS was happy with the manner and content of the Beyond the Tape crime-talk show aired on CCN TV6 and co-hosted by Snr Supt Roger Alexander and TV6 journalist Marlan Hopkinson, to which Harewood-Christopher replied no, adding that this show was under review.
Newsday sought the views of Alexander moments after the JSC meeting ended at 5 pm on Wednesday, but he opted not to comment on the basis that he had not listened to the JSC proceedings especially when the issue of the Beyond the Tape programme was raise by Senator Richards.
The post Ex-top cop claims Govt frustrated by top cop – Griffith: Dinosaurs running TTPS appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.