Police fled crime scene, failed to pursue suspects in murder of TSTT employee

Three police officers assigned to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service are facing criminal and disciplinary charges in connection with the murder of Kenny Goddard, an employee of the Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT).

Goddard was shot and killed last Sunday while working at Cocorite, just outside of Port of Spain.

Two constables had been assigned to security duties. However the Trinidad Express reported Friday that the officers were not close to the work site at the time of the shooting they fled the scene. The report said the officers did not pursue the suspect.

The two officers were in civilian attire in an unmarked TSTT vehicle, the Express said, adding that there was no official record in any police diary or register stating that the officers had been given approval to perform guard duties.

The paper cited a police source as saying that TSTT’s management did not know that a TSTT employee worked with a police sergeant to provide armed police officers to perform unauthorised guard duties for pay.

The paper said the head TSTT's Public Relations and External Affairs said the company is “working very closely with the police” in its investigation. It said Camille Salandy promised a full statement "at the appropriate time".

TSTT has said there was no breach of protocol in hiring of police officers to protect the company's work crews and that the officers hired through official channels.

However the Express said its sources have revealed that the company’s management was in the dark about what was going on and that there might have been a direct connection with a particular TSTT employee and one of the officers "to perform the unauthorised duties.”

The paper said officers attached to the Western Division have insisted that they never received an official request from TSTT for guard duties last weekend.

“The monies were never paid at the Western Division’s headquarters at the St James Police Station, simply because the requests never came to the division, as it should have. 

"This thing was being done under the table and the employee would directly contact the sergeant, who would send the constables to perform the duties,” the paper quoted a senior police source as saying.

The paper said the source said the illegal activity had been going on for a long time. "Let’s see them get away from this one because they failed to even respond to the crime and that’s a serious offence,” the paper quoted one officer as saying.