Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 30/Sep 03:34

100 days of Guevarro

WHEN asked to rate her first 100 days, Erla Harewood-Christopher infamously replied with one word: excellent. But on September 26, Allister Guevarro did not make that mistake. “You, the public, are my employer,” he said, replying to the same request. “You tell me.” His different approach to the question is the answer. Ms Harewood-Christopher’s tenure ended in confusion; her half-facetious, half-glib reply was a harbinger of what was to come. Poor communication seemed indicative of poor management. She set unrealistic performance goals and later admitted so. She blanked, in her first days alone, key parliamentary proceedings while calling on divine intervention to help fight crime. Unpromising was the 2023 beginning; unpromising, after record-breaking homicides, was the end: too many questions have been left after her dramatic February sacking. She may well have her day in court in civil proceedings. Mr Guevarro’s primary accomplishment in his first few months has been to steady the ship. Proactive, not reactive, has been his approach; voluminous and, at times, verbose has been his public engagement. Calling a state of emergency was his opening salvo. Equally aggressive was his decision to don a Punisher comic book emblem, suggesting an affinity for vigilantism. The jury is out on the sagacity of the former, while lax judgement characterises the latter. But though he has largely charted a fresh course, the top cop still has to deal with matters left over from the past, like a new homeowner has to deal with a leaky roof. Notable among the many issues are a probe into a key deputy who played a role in Ms Harewood-Christopher’s shocking arrest, a lack of body cameras and police-involved killings. In relation to all three, which are related, the commissioner’s performance has been unimpressive. He has been unable to convince the Police Service Commission to act and ineffective in bolstering confidence in operational standards; a contract for new cameras hangs in disarray for dubious budgetary reasons; and the top cop seems unrepentant when it comes to concerns about extrajudicial killings. In fact, his August 24 assertion of a greater involvement of Venezuelan criminal elements in TT society seemed worryingly designed to provide cover for the executive’s foreign policy embrace of summary executions. It is no secret that the commissioner and the Prime Minister are in deep accord on the issue of cops in schools. With good reason did former PNM security minister Marvin Gonzales urge Mr Guevarro to leave politics aside. But hearteningly, even as gruesome cases continue to occur, murders are down by a whopping 42 per cent. The question is why. Like UV lights shone at a crime scene, the rest of Mr Guevarro’s tenure, so far both promising and unpromising, will illuminate more. The post 100 days of Guevarro appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.