“We are fishermen and we’re told every day to go out there and look for sharks, but when we catch the sharks, we are then told to throw it back into the water.”

This was the comparison made by a frustrated Police Commissioner Gary on Monday, as he renewed his long standing call for amendments to the the Bail Bill, to deny bail to offenders found with illegal firearms.

Speaking at a press briefing on Monday, Griffith lamented that a large reason his officers have been unable to effectively put a lid on murders, is because the current legal system allows repeat offenders to easily access bail and return to criminal activity. He questioned how a police force could make any real dent in lowering the murder rate if this was the reality.

 “Because we seized 5,000 odd firearms in the last five years- almost three firearms every day we seized. But if more firearms enter the country that what we seize, there would be a surplus of firearms. So the objective here is to be able to go after those who hold the firearms and use it,”

According the statistics from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) 79% of homicides committed between 2015 and 2019 were with an illegal firearm.

The Bail Amendment Bill was debated in the Parliament as recently as last week, however it has failed to make any meaningful progress due to heavy resistance from the Opposition, who maintains that persons detained on illegal firearm charges must have a right to bail. One of the consistent arguments put forward by the Opposition is that police may have an unfair opportunity to plant firearms on people who will then be unjustly remanded to prison without a fair protection.

In his address on Monday, Griffith also pledged to go after rogue elements of the TTPS, saying that he has never hidden the fact that a small number of officers work against the system, undermining the honest work of the majority.