July 15, 2020
Top Cop Challenges CMO’s Advice About Sporting Activities: “You’re Confusing The Life Out Of My Officers”
Police Commissioner Gary Griffith, in expressing his disagreement with Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Roshan Parasram’s warning against the resumption of youth sporting activities, questioned the medical professional’s authority to impose such a rule.
“I continue to hear comments by certain appointed individuals as it relates to young people playing sports, it being a matter of concern that may increase the risk of some acquiring COVID-19,” Griffith said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that “These comments continue to do nothing other than to confuse the life out of my Police Officers, as they are the individuals who have to enforce the law, and likewise parents as they are left to wonder if their children playing sport is against the law.”
Griffith accused Dr. Parasram of “trying to scare” parents and their children away from sporting activities- something he believes can avert their attention to less desirable past times. “…Preventing or trying to persuade young people not to play sport after being boxed in their homes for months, is an avenue that can frustrate many young persons and hence their energies can very well be diverted in non-productive, if not criminal avenues,” he said, adding that “When certain persons who never kicked a lime in contact sport, they may not understand the bigger picture.”
The CMO does not draft, approve, or enforce laws. I have received absolutely no policy from any Government official to stop any young person from taking part in sport.
At government’s COVID-19 media conference on Wednesday, the CMO stood his ground on the matter. “My statement, that I have said all along, is that children (activities) should be held back until September. The regulations as far as I know don’t speak to the age of people being allowed to conduct any (sporting) activity. From my side that is where I stand.” he said.