How to Knock Out Watchman? Gary Plots and Plans, PSC on Pins and Needles.

Blocking a Nation's Prayer:

There was a sense of purpose, when decades ago, he declared his mission in the name he chose. Almost always with a serious expression, but with the ability to make you laugh at yourself anytime, he said his duty is to be, for Trinidad and Tobago, the Watchman: “to look out for people, to warn people and to stop people from doing wrong.”

Wayne Hayde (Gary Cardinez Photo)

Is he still too serious for them? When the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) Headquarters was car bombed in the 1990 attempted coup and police men were utterly demoralised, as a police constable he was among  a small group that led from the ground and from the ashes came the Police Second Division Social and Welfare Association that successfully bargained for resources and respect.

The homegrown, incorruptible, police officer‘s decades of experience in international conflict zones-in a non-military capacity- in Africa, the Middle East and Asia has groomed him for the job at hand. He sees the challenge as bringing T&T to an even keel.

Once again, Wayne Hayde has applied for the post as Police Commissioner, four years after they created the circumstances to make him ineligible.

In 2017 , they rendered him unqualified on the basis of his age, although he is far younger than the man who is Chairman of the National Security Council and US President Joe Biden, no doubt.

Did his fair and fearless social commentary in calypso in the decade of the 90’s, especially, place him at a disadvantage, he wondered.

So, he refrained from taking legal action because he did not want it to seem like a case of sour grapes.

Hayde quietly left Trinidad and witnessed, from afar, all the drama unfold as a result of the tainted process that took Gary Griffith into office as Commissioner of Police. It was no different from every night he performed in the Calypso Monarch Finals, even when thousands  of patrons at the Queen’s Park Savannah chanted “sing Watchman sing.”  As he walked off the stage, he jumped in his car and headed home to watch the results on television, knowing  it was the respect of the people that mattered and not the status quo.

Now, as a candidate, the Chaguanas born and bred Hayde is setting standards for the newly appointed Judith Jones led Police Service Commission (PSC), by his vigilance.

“This is a new day,” he declared recently, in a voice message to senior police officers in a What’s App Chat Group, many of whom pushed him to apply for the job as top cop.

“Not to undermine, challenge or damage anyone, we are all seeking a fair assessment, a confidential process, which gives confidence to the public that the person selected has been chosen by fair means,” he stated.

In the process between 2017 and 2018, there were major breaches of confidentiality (that could have been challenged in court) when Griffith paraded, in the media, the scores of the candidates on the Merit list, showing himself as the man with the most points. And no one asked how he got access to that information. As it unfolded, Griffith was a repeat offender when in 2021, as a candidate, he was copied directly on confidential emails from the PSC leading to the eventual resignation of  the Commission.

“In 2022, there was an interview on July 2nd with the candidate saying that he has “complete confidence in this new PSC, after he met with them”, Hayde noted in the dialogue with the senior officers, wondering  “ if we are going through a tainted and biased process, again, where the outcome has already been determined.” Days later the PSC issued a statement clarifying that the meeting  with Griffith was not connected to the selection process. But that was not all.

Gary Griffith

Still unreported to date is a recent attempt by the former Commissioner  to lobby a senior Tobagonian police officer  to apply for the post promising him second in command, in what appears to be a desperate attempt to get the support of senior police officers. He is trying to give the impression that he has some power and influence over the process again and is sure to win.

But the Watchman is on the alert.

More than three years ago, in 2019, when he last visited Trinidad and Tobago from Uganda where he lives and works, for a reunion with his Batch, I met and interviewed Wayne Hayde the night before he left the country. There was no right time to publish this interview because it would have been lost in the loud sound of the TTPS crashing into an abyss of politics.

No one knows who the Watchman is, really, except for the on stage calypsonian.

The transcript of the recorded interview is broken into bite sized pieces.

Read on to understand why, under given circumstances, he is the answer to a Patriot’s prayer.

I wish I had the challenge to lower the murder rate.

Those who were there in the Executive  of the TTPS did not deserve to be considered for the job because they were part of the colossal failure, in my opinion. There are those who will argue that things were fine, I beg to differ. 

Let me tell you, I want to be able to come home and feel comfortable and work with anyone who is committed, competent and willing to do what it takes to bring the country back to an even keel. Because we are all part of the problem letting the police service sink so low. But of course, I reserve the greatest amount of my disappointment with Stephen Williams, who was a friend of mine, who remained and kept fiddling while the Service was burning.

Stephen Williams.

That is the reason why I applied. Had it been a national vote, in 2017, and the both candidates were allowed to talk and make their case I am positively sure, I would have won people over, even though I had been out of the country for so long and half of the young population don't know who I am. But this is the age of the internet and people can simply check and make their own judgements where that is concerned. 

But it’s a thankless job. There is no way you are going to score a definitive victory. 

What you have to do is hope that your positives outweigh your negatives. And the greatest negative right now (2019) is the question of the murder rate and that is really what I wish I had the challenge to do. 

 

As I got older and as I went to different places, I have seen a lot of death and destruction. I have gone to places in Rwanda where they killed and buried 45,000 people (about twice the seating capacity of Madison Square Garden). Overall, half a million Tutsis were killed in the genocide, victims of the Hutus. I interviewed people who, I know, if they get an opportunity will cut your throat and drink your blood. I have been to places where people don't have water or basic amenities. I have been to places where had it not been for the grace of God, it could have been me. 

AFP Photo: Rwanda before the genocide.

When I lived and worked in East Timor, we used to take a flight and go to Bali. Two weeks after I passed through there, suicide bombers blew themselves up and killed people at Mata Hari Mall .

From Sudan, I covered Somalia, Addis Ababa and been to Nairobi at the West Gate mall, a place that all the expats like me will go. They killed them there. You do not know when is your time to go. So, I have learnt now to be thankful. 

 

  

A potent mixture of academics and experience: 

Yes, that is what I was doing. It is conflict and that’s my forte. In 1998 I got a call from the United Nations, two years after I applied, and they offered a contract for me to work with the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda, starting as a P2 , paying ten times what I earned in the TTPS.

I was a witness support officer to ensure the protection and safety of witnesses to the genocide in Rwanda. I also served as an investigator, going to different places and interviewing survivors of the genocide and taking statements and collecting evidence. I went to different prisons in far out places. I stayed there for one and half years and then I got an offer to go to East Timor where they had broken away from the Indonesians and there was violence.  The UN set up an international mission there with the stated purpose to turn East Timor into an Independent country in 2000.  I spent six years out there. 

UK Guardian: Timor fight for Independence

I was the Legal Adviser to three Police Commissioners and training adviser to another, setting up the police academy and creating programs for the new recruits because they were creating a country. 

I even drafted the Police Service Act for them. I drafted the Road Traffic Act, parts of the Firearms Ammunition and Explosives Act and part of the Criminal Procedure Act dealing with Juvenile Justice, as well. Because the country was being run by the UN, we had that kind of ability to write laws so I used my experience from different places to write the laws. Especially road traffic because at home in Trinidad, I knew every law in the road traffic book. I was promoted twice during that stint.

After allegations of abuse, the UN  decided to set up the Conduct and Discipline Unit and I applied for a post and moved to New York where I stayed for one and half years and was again promoted to P5 before I was sent as the UN Chief of Conduct and Discipline for Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus, and Italy.  

I spent a year and half in Lebanon and got another promotion to D1 and they sent me to Darfur and it's where I spent just over seven  years and retired from there. 

It is impossible for me to see people through the prism of race and class because of where I grew up 🙌 and that is one of the things that has assisted me  greatly in life

I was always comfortable going anywhere. That first became important when I became President of the Student’s Guild at  the University of the West Indies, UWI. I can’t lose my accent. I don't know how to pretend. If I need to address any formal gathering, anywhere in the world, I know how to use English. But I still sound like I am from Chaguanas. 

I was born on Henderson Street, Chaguanas, in the area near the Lion House that is featured in Naipaul’s novel, The House for Mr. Biswas. But I grew up everywhere. 

The first school I went to was the Seereram Memorial Vedic but I didn’t stay there long because we moved to Chase Village and I went to Orange Field Hindu. And then when my other relatives came, they moved me to Carapichaima Anglican. 

👏I now hold a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Law, Law Education Certificate,  Master of Science in Protection Management,  Master of Commercial Law, Doctor of Business Administration and  I am completing a Masters in Conflict Resolution and Peace Building  at Kampala International University, in Uganda.

You are over qualified for the job? Why apply?

Several years ago, when they were going to advertise the post, (when Dwayne Gibbs ended up taking the position) people had called me and asked why don't you apply. 

But I knew from listening to the politicians that they were not ready to accept a local boy even though I had this international experience. They were dead set on bringing somebody, a foreigner. So I did not apply. I was proven to be correct.  Then when there is a need now, I got many calls from both civilians and police telling me  that I would  make a difference. 

Canadian Dwayne Gibbs

Against my better judgement I decided that I was going to apply. (2017) 

Against your better judgement? 

Yeah, because I still felt that people judge you not by who you are but by how they assume you are. And sometimes people, hearing the things I sang as a Calypsonian, and not knowing what I did outside of Trinidad and Tobago would never understand the level of expertise and so on. 

Many times, I had downtime and I would just beat the books, you know. 

Sometimes when you ask people Wayne Hayde, who is he? People do not always know. People see me through different windows. There were those on UWI campus with me, who knew me as I was and would judge on the basis of that.

They made up their minds to let the ship sink.

In the whole process of selection  in 2017-2018  the intention  was to maintain the status quo.  I was told by the Police Service Commission, they were given advice by some senior counsel ,that because of my age, because I was over 60 and I am coming in from overseas,  that they should not put me on the merit list. That is after inviting me twice from Uganda to Trinidad ,Transatlantic flights and jet lag and sleep loss, to do interviews, at which I did well. You understand? And then suddenly they decided to put Deodath Dulalchan— I have nothing against him I know him very well, and Harold Phillip, these are people I worked with and I like them I don't have anything against them. 

I knew that was the game. So, they put them on the list. 

It was Deodath Dulalchan, Stephen Williams, Harold Phillips and Gary Griffith. 

I still think I have a case against them but you cannot spend your whole life litigating.  For what purpose? Would it prove something? Would it improve my life? All it would do is give me bragging rights at this stage.

So that’s what they did. They did not look at international experience and  the fact that you were not part of the problem so you could be part of the solution. They were prepared to put the people who created the problem back into office.   

The Police Service Commission is occupied by different personalities at different times.

Does the PSC have a culture, even though they put different people in the Commission? 

When people work together and they make decisions of a particular nature, the organisations develop a culture. Every Commissioner comes in and meets a support staff: the administration and personnel department, the lawyers, etc. some of whom have been there for donkey years and enforce a certain understanding of how things are, and how things ought to be. 

The Commissioners being in daily, monthly, weekly interaction with the officers who are already part of that executive, can develop an understanding or a likeness. 

Like me, when I started singing calypso there were people who were afraid of me and felt that I was very, very, very radical. and then after year one and year two, they would come and say I listen to you and there is nothing wrong with you. And they have that understanding. 

I felt that the PSC had made up their minds to maintain the status quo and let the ship sink with who was already on it. 

  

Newsday Photo: Members of the Commission appear before the JSC, December 2017.

That Police Service Commission Lied to the JSC 

And they lied, for example, they never asked me if I wished to be considered for the post of deputy commissioner and I heard them go before the Joint Select Committee  of Parliament, and said they asked all the candidates. There were two candidates whom they did not ask  that question. Gary Griffith  and I. Because we applied for the post of Police Commissioner alone. And they know they did not ask me that question. 

I know they were recording part of the interview. Sure, they would never produce that interview with me to say I was asked that question over the course of two interviews because I would have told them what I told the press, I did not apply for Deputy Commissioner. I applied for Commissioner. 

But Dulalchan, I knew, did not apply for Commissioner and Philip told me himself he did not apply but they leap frog everybody else and then try to change the whole process and say that they were looking for a talent pool. 

If you are creating a talent pool, once you apply you will be assessed and those with the talent pool will be rated against any of the two posts. 

That was never done. 

Trinidad’s Perfect Crime Storm

You created a system where young people went into schools unable to learn and so develop a culture  of violence within those schools. We should focus more on technical schools which provide the trade and skills that allow the whole country to run. The artisan core is the basic core of the society. 

You introduce people to frustration and isolation, they found themselves where they had no real communities to provide solace, with community leaders who were gang leaders. Once that happened there was no pulling it back, except by drastic measures. 

For me, I look at cause and effect. I tell people there are many reasons that have all dovetailed to create a perfect storm of what we have here now. I am not a sociologist or psychologist or a community activist. So all the arguments about breakdown of the family structure and alienation of people, all these that could give rise to a culture of violence, I would leave to the experts.

I like to talk as a police officer because that has been my major experience. But also because of what I have seen, how other societies operate. I would say the biggest problem is that this country is overrun with guns .

Trini gunman.

The reason we are overrun with guns is because decisions were taken that loosened our controls over our already porous borders like closing the Police Marine Branch rather than building it together with the Coast Guard to create a concentric ring around the island, especially the Venezuelan side which is so close anybody who could walk on water will reach here. 

We must remember that we are part of this transshipment route from the major countries in South America where cocaine is being created. Unfortunately, we are on the road to the United States, which is the biggest and major user of drugs. 

When you have drugs of that nature the guns are there to protect it and we did not do anything to help with reducing the access to guns, given that we have a porous border and are so close to large countries that can do us harm. 

Then we had what was a failed system where we felt that every child was entitled to go to secondary school whether they had the ability to do well academically. We created all these schools and put students in it even if they were marginal in passing the SEA.

Police don't scare gunmen.

We have a miniature version of the garrison turf. On one side of the highway or the other side. It is all fed by one thing: guns. Once you remove the guns from their hands, nobody is going to rush across the road with no cutlass and go chop up the guys on the other side. That will only happen in the old steel band clash days. 

The unfortunate thing is that it is the ordinary people who are being misled into believing that the police are the enemy. That is what you have to conquer. if you do not conquer that view you will never get the intelligence, the support and all of that to help the police to solve crime. 

It is far gone because of the availability of guns. Without the guns we will go back into our Trinidad old talk and fight, but without causing too much harm. 

Our legislation is too weak based on what I know elsewhere. If you get caught with an illegal firearm in Uganda it will be a sad day for you, let me just put it that way. In one year, our murder rate was 500 and Uganda was 4000 but Uganda has population of 43 million (about twice the population of New York) .When you extrapolate you will see our murder rate is five times what the Uganda murder rate is given the population and then in Uganda, ninety percent of people were being killed by things other than guns- , with knives machetes, arrows, rockets. 

In Trinidad, how do you scare the gunmen? You're not going to scare them by just having a police presence and a police response. The judiciary and the politicians must join hands to ensure there are strong laws and expedited trials. 

If you do not expedite trials you are going to have people targeted for execution because the longer you stay the more likely they are to be killed.  Having a witness protection program does not work as well as you think unless you are in a big country . Where are you going to put them, on another Caribbean Island? It is just a plane to go there.

Photo: Vice News

An Incompetent Officer Can Soon Become a Corrupt Officer

For me, even though I am a police officer at heart and I love the police service, we cannot  hide our failures., We now have people coming into the job to spend some time, to eat-ah food and build a CV. 

We need to fix the discipline problem and do everything we can to get rid of the officers tainted by corruption and incompetence. An incompetent officer can easily become a corrupt officer and I want to get rid of both of them. 

There must be a process other than using suspension as a punishment. Rather than just put the person  on suspension with pay and forget them for the next five years because they are  not charged and tried departmentally.

You have to set up a disciplinary system within the service to get rid of them. 

And that has to be rigid and has to be consistent and you have to not care. 

Some of the officers bring their wives, girlfriends, concubines, children, aunts, uncles, in the wuk, so everybody seems to have somebody in the wuk who could look out for them.  

 When a policeman was respected.....  

I grew up poor, with difficult circumstances and I made up my mind very early that I wanted to be a policeman, I felt then I would earn respect and it would put me in a place where nobody could take advantage of me. I wanted to go to university because where I grew up in Chase Village, people who wanted a recommendation for their passport had to go to someone who was a police corporal and above, or a university graduate and you would see, people would have to go and line up by one man man’s house to get documents signed. 

I believe it was the best thing that could happen to a young man in terms of creating a sense of discipline. A police training college is not a school. It is a place to take young men and women and turn them into policemen, creating a specific sense of belonging, an identity, a discipline you would not have anywhere else. 

 

Police Constable Wayne Hayde.

…..And did not overstep the law

People would think I am militant. My attitude was if I see something is wrong and it can be put right, then why can’t I? Yes, I was always careful about overstepping the law.. There are times when you go to arrest people and they want to fight with you. If you want to fight me when I arrest you, we will have to fight until somebody wins. But I operated a lot by force of personality. I was not a physically big person, even now, but I always had a determination that if you are doing something wrong, I would tell you.

 If I am going to arrest you, I would tell you, but I also had a sense of knowing when to step back and apply irresistible force. If I go into a situation and realise this might lead to physical confrontation, and I don't have back up, I am not going to proceed. Still, even though I may be armed. I would say let's retract, come back with reinforcements and then take everybody. I tend to operate like that. I wasn’t afraid to arrest people. I arrested a lot of people. 

As for my superiors, If I had something to say I would say If I had something to ask, I would ask. But I am not disrespectful. I always had this ability to speak my mind. If something is wrong, I would say it is wrong. I hate bullies and if a fight started, I would jump in. I don't like it at all. Maybe I was stupid, or fearless or whatever, but I always felt there was a need to protect people if they are being disadvantaged- or being taken advantage of. 

I do not take things for granted and I don't mind sitting for the entire day and I have the capacity to argue for a long time. I could be with people doing this for hours and eventually wear them down and wear myself down and it avoided a lot of fights.

I never lost my temper. Let us discuss it and we would find a way out. I used the same approach throughout my life. When I was writing lyrics, I also understood the need for humour because if you could make people laugh when you are saying something very serious you can get away with it. I understood that because I used to listen to all the calypsonians, listen to their songs and reason it out to know what is wrong and right, hear the clever ones and be wowed by it.  

Rescued from “abandoned dog kennels”.

We were always dissatisfied about the leadership of Trevor Bailey at the time. So, I decided that I was going to challenge them. I organised a meeting in the Training College. A few people came, not the crowd that I expected. 

The following day Holder called me and said he had the same idea and asked for us to join forces. It was 1990, after the coup attempt in which the Police Headquarters was blown up and so we started going around to Stations and Divisions throughout the country. By 1991 we had established the Social and Welfare Association with myself as President. 

And then we applied for bargaining status for police officers in the second division and it was granted to us because we had the majority members. When it was granted, they challenged the decision which was tried in the High Court- around 1993. I was sitting behind the two lawyers who were arguing the State’s case. They asked me to help them with the intricacies of the regulations and I remember that because one of the lawyers was Sharon Rowley. I was  studying law but not yet a lawyer. 

We continued representing police officers in the second division . We highlighted the  conditions of police stations throughout the country and the first place we started was the Mounted Branch where police officers were actually using abandoned dog kennels as their dormitories. We went down there and shut that down. 

In other cases people were working in police stations that were rat infested. They were bitten by bed bugs and it was bad. The law was that the Minister of National Security was the one who had to declare a building to be a police station. But I read the law further which stated that the building had to be approved for human habitation by the Ministry of Health. 

So, we quietly went behind to the Ministry of Health and had them inspect some stations and give us certificates saying the buildings were not fit for human habitation. And then we took our own money from the Association and identified buildings to rent, to become police stations. We did not want to be accused of closing stations and putting the public at risk because the police officers are not working. 

We paid money to rent it. The government did take over the rent from us when they decided to do it. That's how, specifically Sangre Grande, Mon Repos and Four Roads  police stations were built. We had discussions with the Minister, Joe Theodore, and the government agreed and asked for six months to start the process. 

People have these nice stations and do not know the genesis. (laughter). 

The Watchman on stage

Thing to Cry, You Wining?

I only started singing when I wrote my first calypso in 1985 while at the University of the West Indies It was “ .. As a policeman, one of the things that you had to do was work extra duty at shows..  Sometimes I had nothing better to do after work, than to work and go home. So, I would work extra duties at the calypso tent, especially opposite the jail on Frederick Street, at Shadow’s Master’s Den. I worked  there so many times that  I could sing everybody’s songs. Then, too I would hear someone say something and know I could say it differently.  

I entered the university calypso competition as a first-year student. I called myself Calypso Fresh, and I beat them badly. 

Then an Independence Calypso  competition came up in August 1988  and I had written a song called Boots and Brains for the  third time at campus competition. They did not seem to understand what I was saying, so they placed me fourth. I took the same calypso and changed the lyrics to make it national, on the urging of my friends. When I got the form to sign up, I did not know what to call myself. I was watching Gayelle one night when Shorty-I and his family were singing a song called the Watchman on the walls of Jerusalem. And I said that is a good name. 

I went to the auditions where nobody knew who I was. I spent two days there. On the second day I got my chance to sing, as I hit the first verse and chorus and Dr. Fedo Blake who was one of the judges jumped up. And calypsonians who were outside started running in to hear. I got scared, but when I was finished, Peter Ray Blood asked my name and he wrote an article saying "hold on to your crown Cro Cro,  the Watchman  is coming strong. 

Cro Cro decided not to defend. I ended up winning. 

When I was the Students  Guild President, at UWI Roodal Moonilal became the Secretary and then moved up to become VP in the second year ,and I was President a third time when I was doing  my postgraduate studies. 

Moonilal was always a very sharp guy- always politically motivated. When Club 88 was formed he asked me to sing in the Aranguez savannah. I had just won the Independence Monarch  title with Boots and a Brain, but I refused to sing on any political stage.  

Victimised for my lyrics

I would say yes, though you can never really have any definitive proof of it. 

Let me give an example. In 1995 I sang a song called the Ladder, about  then Prime Minister Basdeo Panday and the charges brought against him  before he was elected to office.

That was the same year I applied for a Commonwealth scholarship to go to Canada or England to do a Masters in Criminology. 

I went through the process  in which seven people were interviewed and I emerged at the top of the list that included three others. The only thing left was for the list to be taken to Cabinet for approval before December 31st. The interesting thing is that  the other four  were sacrificed because  if they gave approvals for 2,3 and 4, I would have had a case for discrimination, so they gave no scholarships that year. 

But then too I felt my career was much better as a singer. 

Ever serious, Wayne Hayde.

I placed higher in competition in the years when another party other than the PNM was in power, whether it was NAR or UNC, if you check my records. I felt that the judges had their own biases which were often applied to calypso and calypsonians, in a subtle way. 

Now it's easier for the judges, because the people have forgotten to sing political commentary. They don't have those challenges anymore. It's a question of music and who has a better voice, who went to the right school and who is managing who and all that. 

I made up my mind, very early, that I would basically sing for the people. I remember where I grew up, the people I know, who I feel comfortable with long before I became a singer. I never lost friends.   

After the disappointment of 1995 I decided to pursue a master's degree in criminology. I wanted to go to Cambridge University  but it was expensive, So I looked for an alternative and applied to John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NY to do a Master's Degree in Protection Management. I gathered the money I made from singing calypso and I took vacation leave and went to the US in 1997.

I spent two semesters and completed most of the course.  My GPA was 3.92.  And I was poised to go to Brown’s University to pursue my Ph’d when I got the job offer at the United Nations... and that decision informed my life for the past two decades. I learnt everyday that I lived.

    

1994: "Rise up my people let the world know you are alive.

"Let them see that despite all struggle, my people are bound to survive.🙏