Another security lapse

A mere three weeks following on the publication of a report that the Police Stores on Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain had been broken into and a quantity of items removed, comes another, this time of the alleged removal of an unmarked police car, which had been sent to a mechanic for repairs. Both are reckless examples of lapses in police security. How can the public turn to the police for help in securing their property when the police can’t protect their own? And while the items removed from the police stores may have been considered by the authorities to have been minor, the car was reported to have been a specially modified vehicle used by an anti-crime unit. Whether the items from the Police Stores were not worth much financially, both events nonetheless represented serious lapses of police security.

The second breach was tacitly attributable to the police themselves, who instead of having the vehicle sent to be repaired by the State-owned company, the Vehicle Maintenance Company of Trinidad and Tobago (VMCOTT), established to repair and service all Government vehicles, took it to a private mechanic. The mechanic, it is claimed, neither owns nor operates a garage and the car was reportedly stolen from outside of his home, where it had been parked. If, as has been reported, the car, a silver Toyota Royal Saloon, had special features which would have been of interest to criminals, why had it not been sent to VMCOTT? There would have been security systems in place and the likelihood of it being stolen would have been minimal. In addition, if the repairs to be effected were of a sensitive nature and demanded the services of a specially trained team of mechanics, why then had Special Branch officers or officers of the anti-crime police unit which had been using the car not assigned to guard it on a round the clock basis at the mechanic’s place?

Was the choice of the mechanic to whom the vehicle was reportedly sent arrived at on a “vikey-vie” basis”? Or was he specially trained in the repair and/or servicing of specially modified vehicles of the undercover anti-crime Police Unit? Which officer determined the selection of the mechanic? We are calling into question, not only the by-passing of established procedure, but the dismissive attitude with respect to the guaranteeing of the security of the vehicle. We are forced to conclude that it was a mixture of the above which resulted in the alleged unauthorised removal of the car. What is of concern to us is not simply that the police car, which was unmarked admittedly, had been allegedly stolen, but the possibility of exposure of its security features, however accidentally. The report of the break-in at the Police Stores had been bad enough, exposing as it did the clear lack of security, if not indifference to it, at the stores. It was a needless lapse. The lapse in security vis-a-vis the specially modified police vehicle was both reckless and inexcusable, and once again puts into question the credibility of those who are supposed to be there to protect and serve.