By Sue-Ann Wayow
ACTING Police Commissioner Mc Donald Jacob must act quickly to ensure that body cameras allocated to police officers were operational and in use.
Member of Parliament for Oropouche East Dr Roodal Moonilal said it should not be that difficult to ensure proper infrastructure for recording video footage of the officers while they interface with the public.
Speaking on Monday night during the United National Congress (UNC) virtual report, Dr Moonilal said, “The Police Commissioner must act quickly to ensure that those body cams are operational and are in use.”
He said it was important especially “when people are being killed in circumstances where there are legitimate questions about the conduct of police officers.”
The MP added, “A body cam is not only to tell you police was wrong, a body cam is to tell you the police was right. It is to clear the policeman of false accusations. It is to tell you what happened.”
Jacob had said that the reason why the body cameras were not yet in use was because of a “technological infrastructure”.
Body cams distributed
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) in a press release on Monday stated that 1,000 body cameras were received in March 2022.
A total of 477 of the devices were distributed among all nine Divisional Task Force members in Trinidad, and the Traffic and Highway Patrol Branch.
Also, 451 officers were trained in the use of body-worn cameras, with 90 per cent of these officers attached to the nine Divisional Task Forces in Trinidad and the Traffic and Highway Patrol Branch.
Tobago received its first allocation of cameras on Monday with the distribution of 20 devices, and training will commence for officers in the Division next week.
Eighty more cameras will be allocated to the Division before the end of the month. The TTPS stated, “The TTPS also wishes to advise that a centralised management system for recorded video has been put in place and is currently undergoing the requisite configuration prior to being activated. There are also sufficient docking stations for charging the devices and these are being placed at strategic locations across all ten Divisions. More officers will be trained in the use of the cameras and additional distribution across the TTPS is expected by the end of August 2022.”
