PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Police Commissioner Gary Griffith says he is aware of plans to assassinate him using foreign killers but said he is not perturbed and would continue his job to deal with the criminal elements in Trinidad and Tobago.
Addressing front line police officers and their families at the Police Academy over the last weekend, Griffith warned that crime had become “big business.
“Now they have reached a point where to try to kill me they have to bring in persons external. It shows how irrelevant they are, now they have to bring in foreign used criminals to try and kill the Commissioner of Police. Griffith told the ceremony that was organised by the I Support our Services Initiative.
Last week, the Trinidad Guardian newspaper reported that the assassins from Venezuela were hired to murder Griffith, Superintendent Roger Alexander and members of the Special Operations Response Team (SORT).
The newspaper quoting intelligence sources said that the plot was hatched by gang members targeting officers “for retaliatory violence”.
“It is unknown when and where the planned executions would take place however, their modus operandi includes the use of overt surveillance on their intended targets, most likely utilising motorcycles,” the newspaper reported, quoting what it said was a confidential document, titled “Alert, Plot To Kill TTPS Officers”.
Griffith told the ceremony that he was not perturbed at the report to assassinate him saying “they day that stops that’s when I would be concerned, because it means I am not doing my job.
“The day the detractors, the activists, some politicians…and others stop criticising you’ll and condemning you all (I will be worried). Remember they represent what we are trying to bring down. So we are seen as the enemy to these individuals. It is the war out there”.
Griffith a former senior member of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force, who also served as a national security minister here, reminded the police officers that they should be their brothers’ keepers since “it is critical to ensuring that the lives of each and every one of you stay secure, you must have each other’s back”.
Griffith referred to the recent protest in east Port of Spain, following the killings of three civilians by police officers on June 27 and defended his officers from criticism that have come from some quarters here.
“Sometime it is just good, even if it is just a thank you, it goes a long way…but this a time is an ungrateful society. Remember this you all did not come here for reward, you all did not come here for gratitude or to be thanked.
“So even if you may not see it understand that the silent majority of this country appreciate what you do,” he added. (CMC)
