Rubber guns for guardsBy SEAN DOUGLAS Tuesday, November 17 2009
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Fired up: Estate Police Association president Andrew Dardaine tells a Police Service Commission consultation at the National Library, Port-of-Spain ye...
ESTATE Police Association (EPA) president Andrew Dardaine yesterday complained that some security firms are sending their employees to guard property armed with rubber guns, in an apparent reference to dummy guns used for training purposes.
His bombshell came at the Police Service Commission (PSC) Stakeholder Forum held yesterday at the National Library, Port-of-Spain.
“You could imagine, a security company giving an officer a rubber firearm to go to work?” said an outraged Dardaine.
He lamented a recent incident where a security company refused to send a vehicle to transport a vulnerable female officer in possession of two firearms in a public place late at night.
“A female officer was working at a casino and finished work at 2 am, tired, with a firearm in her waist and another one in her hand, and had to call Belmont (Police) Station to pick her up because the company refused to pick her up. She sat down on Independence Square on a bench waiting to be picked up by the company, and the company not coming to pick her up.”
Saying a police inspector has done several reports on that company, he asked whether they should be allowed to issue even more firearms.
Noting a security firm had recently been reported for having lost eight firearms, Dardaine asked, “Who is guarding the guards?”
Dardaine also asked whether the Commissioner of Police is doing his job properly in issuing firearms users certificates, saying if he wasn’t then he should be fired.
“Young men walk into a security company and in six months they are precepted with a firearm and no one is doing a background check,” said Dardaine, adding this scenario suggested there is orchestrated criminality.
Dardaine called for tougher laws to regulate these companies, lamenting, “We are getting promises after promises and the good citizens of Trinidad and Tobago are dying.”
He said when a security officer leaves one company to join another, he is issued a fresh firearms users certificate without any one checking up on his background.
He said the law mandates the Police Commissioner to ensure adequate remuneration for any security officer whom the commissioner grants a precept for a firearm, but alluded that this is not actually being done.
Dardaine said new laws were needed to stop a scenario where security officers carry home their weapons after finishing their shift and then allegedly rent them out.
