“Don’t blame police, the victim made no report”

This is Police Commissioner Gary Griffith’s response to those pointing fingers at law enforcement following the murder of Tricia Ramsaran-Ramdass in Barrackpore last week.

Griffith was responding specifically to the Coalition Against Domestic Violence (CADV), which, in a statement on Saturday, said “It is time that the police develop and implement a zero tolerance policy for domestic violence. If a serious offence has been committed or is threatened, the police must act independently, whether the victim cooperates or not.”

Griffith denied that the woman had ever made a report to police. “For the record, Ramsaran made no reports to the police about any spousal abuse, neither did she seek or obtain any protection orders. She never engaged the Gender Based Violence Unit (GBVU). The only report made in May to the Barrackpore Police Station, came from the mother of the deceased who reported that the suspect had threatened her,” he said. Following that report, he said officers visited the home and warned the suspect.

37 year old Ramsaran-Ramdass was strangled to death last Tuesday evening by her partner, who hours later turned himself in to police.

The man was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 in a similar matter.

At the time, it was accepted that he  strangled his female victim to death in an uncontrollable fit fo rage after being provoked and he was released on a $50,000 bond to keep the peace for five years.

He remains in police custody.