Lawmen within special units within the Trinidad and Tobago Police

Service (TTPS) will be equipped with body cameras, Minister of National

Security Stuart Young said on Monday as it was also announced that a full-scale

investigation is being conducted into the circumstances surrounding the deaths

of two suspects while in police custody.

Young

said he had been informed by Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith at a meeting

earlier in the day, that the Special Operations Response Team (SORT), the

Inter-Agency Task Force and Guard and Emergency Branch would be among the first

to get uniforms with special clips for body cameras and radios and a belt with

pepper spray and tasers.

“The

body cameras will now defend my police officers when they are wrongfully

accused,” Griffith said after the meeting.

The

disclosures came as the police commissioner also announced the probe being

conducted into the deaths of suspects Andrew Morris and Joel Balcon.

Officers

from SORT are among those now subject to the investigation.

Griffith

said in a statement that apart from the TTPS conducting an investigation, the

Police Complaints Authority (PCA) is conducting a parallel probe.

Morris

and Balcon were suspects in the kidnapping and subsequent death of 23-year-old

court clerk Andrea Bharatt, who went missing on January 29. Her decomposed body

was found down a precipice on February 4.

“People are reaching a final conclusion without knowing what has

transpired. We are doing a thorough investigation both by the Police Service

and the PCA. For persons to be making false and misleading accusations, it is

not helping the situation in any way. It is inappropriate for people to be

making accusations and who by their accusations, have already found police

officers guilty without getting the facts,” Griffith said.

“These

would include the Law Association, an Opposition Senator, and a person who

received one per cent of the votes in an area he contested in an election. I

have heard comments about a prisoner dying after falling from a chair. At no

time did any police officer or myself say that an individual died because he

fell from a chair. That never took place.”

Commissioner

Griffith insisted that excellent work was done by the various units of the TTPS

in their investigations by finding the four persons responsible for Bharatt’s

kidnapping and death, and they should be commended.

He

added that no one had asked about the well being of the officers who were

injured when they went to arrest suspects in the matter.

Griffith

said he had also taken note that a newspaper had published over the weekend

that it had video footage of an incident relating to this matter, but the TTPS

had no such video footage. He therefore asked anyone with information who could

assist in this matter to come forward and present it to the TTPS.

Commissioner

Griffith insisted there would be no cover-up, noting that since he became top

cop in August 2018, 96 police officers were charged with various offences

including kidnapping, human trafficking, robbery with aggravation and assault,

while another 86 were suspended.