Former deputy police commissioner Mervyn Richardson who is accused of withholding information regarding a purported marijuana find at the Philippine home of the Prime Minister on April 12, 2013, says he is a professional and will continue to do his work as a professional.
Richardson, now head of the Rapid Response Unit (RRU), was responding to demands made by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley that he (Richardson) and executive director of the National Operations Centre (NSOC) Garvin Heera should resign immediately.
In a brief telephone interview yesterday Richardson said: “I keep saying I am a professional officer and I am not going into the politics. I do my work to the best of my ability and I will keep doing my work to the best of my ability.
“I am sorry that he (Rowley) said that but I take pride in all that I do.”
At the time of the alleged drug find Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was in New York.
Addressing supporters at the PNM’s public meeting at Piggott’s Corner, Belmont, on Wednesday night the Opposition Leader charged that if Richardson had questions to answer about “going to the wrong person” he learned it from the Prime Minister.
“You now have Richardson in the NSOC and Garvin Heera is in charge and Garvin Heera is now the man who the head of the Police Complaints Authority who conducted an investigation and concluded that Garvin Heera should be investigated for the operations of an illegal Flying Squad,” Rowley said.
He said for the matter to be easily closed Persad-Bissessar should publicly say that she did not smoke.
Rowley said because of that incident the “entire Police Service” was now “held up to ridicule.”
“I have never heard an instance in Laventille or Carenage... anywhere in this country where police come by your door and lock up somebody for marijuana and it wasn’t marijuana. I have never heard about something looking like marijuana.
“But today we are hearing that the police is concerned about something that looks like marijuana... no standards. We have a situation where the entire Police Service is held up to ridicule for apparently engaging in a cover-up of what they are saying is a non-crime,” Rowley said.
Regarding the PM’s Children’s Life Fund initiative Rowley claimed monies were being stolen from “dying children.”
He also claimed to have documents which showed discrepancies in the cash dispersals which were supposed to be received by parents.
Some 13 parents from April to September last year received no money.