#Providenciales, August 20, 2019 – Turks and Caicos – The new TCI Police Commissioner is not afraid to flush bad behaviours which inhibit public trust or threaten the good integrity of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force; it is what he told media when quizzed about criminal allegations and court trials involving members of the Force.
“Let’s be really clear on this, if people aren’t
going to act with integrity and they’re not gonna serve their community and
serve this Force well, they can look for another job and that’s not a threat
that’s just the bare reality of what’s gonna happen,” said Trevor Botting in his first press conference as new head of the
Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force.
The allegations against officers in recent years
range from arson to sexual misconduct, pedophilia, theft of confiscated
property and evidence, drunk driving, abuse of power, possession of illegal
drugs, spread of private, indecent material over social media, witness
tampering and involvement in armed robbery.
“Every force, in every part of the world will have
misconduct issues. The other thing is just about the
Force that is willing to tackle it and deal with it and that is an important
message as well. If you have the point where you accept that we can have some
officers who make the wrong decisions, make stupid decisions then actually the
next bit is, ‘have you got a Force willing to tackle it?’ We have a number of
officers that are either on admin leave or suspended. I don’t like
it, I don’t take any joy in it…”
Botting, as the former Deputy Commissioner of
Police, a post that carries the responsibility of Human Resources management
promised that he will not back down from moving processing on forward.
“Certainly, when I got here, I kept hearing this
rhetoric that we ignore offences and we ignore our own, people get away with
it,” Botting was adamant about not ignoring misbehavior, “…we won’t, we won’t!”
In his response to the question, Commissioner
Botting shared that he is confident that his second in command, Acting Deputy
Police Commissioner, Rodney Adams will continue to ensure there is integrity
among the ranks; Botting counts good character as critical to being a good
officer.
“If any police officer doesn’t have integrity then
literally, they have nothing. They can be
anything else, but if you haven’t got integrity then…” with a shrug of his
shoulders, he continued with, “…and people see it, the public see it and in
some ways this doesn’t help people having confidence in us but I also want to
look at it the other way, that we are willing to deal with our own.”
There was also a commitment to handle smaller yet
important complaints more rapidly.
“I also want to improve one thing fundamentally; is
we do things quicker. So, if you came and made a
complaint today, at the moment it could take a long time for you to get an
answer. When in actual fact, a person complaining wants
a quick answer. We have some very refined or defined processes to
deal with misconduct, I’d like some short circuits in there.”
In 2018 alone, the TCI Police informed of at least nine cases where members of the Force were facing criminal charges.
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#flushbadbehaviour