Special police units to start wearing body cams

PORT-OF-SPAIN (CMC):

Lawmen in special units within the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) will be equipped with body cameras, Minister of National Security Stuart Young said on Monday. It was also announced that a full-scale investigation is being conducted into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of two suspects while in police custody.

Young said he had been informed by Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith, at a meeting earlier in the day, that the Special Operations Response Team (SORT), the Inter-Agency Task Force and Guard and Emergency Branch would be among the first to get uniforms with special clips for body cameras and radios, and a belt with pepper spray and tasers.

“The body cameras will now defend my police officers when they are wrongfully accused,” Griffith said after the meeting.

The disclosures came as the police commissioner also announced the probe being conducted into the deaths of suspects Andrew Morris and Joel Balcon.

Officers from SORT are among those now subject to the investigation.

Griffith said in a statement that apart from the TTPS conducting an investigation, the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) is conducting a parallel probe.

Morris and Balcon were suspects in the kidnapping and subsequent death of 23-year-old court clerk Andrea Bharatt, who went missing on January 29. Her decomposed body was found down a precipice on February 4.

“People are reaching a final conclusion without knowing what has transpired. We are doing a thorough investigation both by the Police Service and the PCA. For persons to be making false and misleading accusations, it is not helping the situation in any way. It is inappropriate for people to be making accusations and who, by their accusations, have already found police officers guilty without getting the facts,” Griffith said.

Commissioner Griffith insisted that excellent work was done by the various units of the TTPS in their investigations by finding the four persons responsible for Bharatt’s kidnapping and death, and they should be commended.