Malta has had five police commissioners since Rizzo’s departure, with the longest lasting being Lawrence Cutajar, who spent four years in charge before resigning shortly after Robert Abela was sworn in as Prime Minister earlier this year.

However, the former officer warned that none were able to maintain a sense of discipline quite as much as Rizzo and that things got particularly lacklustre under Cutajar.

“Lawrence Cutajar is a nice guy, the sort of person you can call up if you need something. However, under his watch, a slacking culture permeated through the police force.”

“Back when I was a constable and there was nothing that demanded my immediate attention, my sergeant used to call us up and we’d go out on patrol together to see what we’d find. We’d even check the locks on shops to see if any of them had been broken into.”

“Once, I heard an alarm go off at a restaurant, stopped the car and ended up catching the thief redhanded.”    

“You barely ever see any police officers on the beat anymore and I don’t even know the names of most of the officers in my district. Now, when there’s nothing going on, they often just stay at the police station on Facebook.”

Moreover, he said Cutajar largely discarded an internal disciplinary board, through which officers caught doing something wrong, such as skiving, would end up disciplined, such as by having to pay a fine or losing a few days of vacation leave.

“I wasn’t scared of the punishment itself but of the humiliation it entailed, of being caught doing something wrong and having to explain myself in front of my superiors,” the former officer said.

“However, this stopped under Cutajar because he wanted to be popular among his officers. He was indeed popular among them and he even used to go out for dinner with constables, but that’s not how things should work in the police force.”

“A police commissioner should keep his distance, and his officers should view him as a god and not as their friend.”

“If I own a factory and tell my staff they can do nothing and still get paid, they will enjoy it but there won’t be any motivation, and eventually they’ll stop working and start skiving.”

“As a result of Cutajar’s attitude, a slacking culture became widespread and motivation and enthusiasm took a hit.”

The former officer said he “100% believes” the allegations of widespread abuse at the higher echelons of the police force recently flagged by suspended traffic officers, such as warnings that officers are abusing of public funds by attending university lectures when they are supposed to be at work.

“The police are going to get embarrassed big-time by charging them with skiving… skiving was widespread,” he said.

And the former officer also suspects this culture of indiscipline was what led to the police dropping its minimum height requirement for new recruits a few years ago.

“Police officers have to go up against the country’s toughest criminals and they be physically imposing,” he said. “There are some huge criminals out there; are the police going to send a boy to arrest them? They’ll just laugh in his face.”

The former officer also warned that Cutajar shied away from taking action in politically sensitive cases, such as by allowing activists to throw tomatoes at the police depot following the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

“I had tears in my eyes when I saw those scenes at the depot and felt so humiliated,” he recounted. “These things would never have happened under Rizzo; people would have been arrested.”

More seriously, he questioned why the police didn’t press charges against Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina for dangerous driving and endangering the lives of officers back in June 2019.

“The police wanted to press charges against Karol Aquilina but I suspect the police commissioner was scared of criticism and knew he would have been politically attacked even more if Aquilina was charged.”

“He should have been charged on the spot but he wasn’t even arrested. Why not, because he’s a prominent person? Isn’t the law supposed to be the same for all?”

Besides reintroducing a sense of discipline, the former officer advised Gafa’ to properly market the police force and lobby for a salary increase for officers.

“Only people who have a passion for policing should join the police force and having O and A levels isn’t enough… if you want to join the police, you need two balls the size of Kinder Sorpresas.”

And what does he make of the man who Cabinet has chosen to lead the police force following a public call?

“Angelo Gafa’ is quite strict and physically athletic, used to work at the Malta Security Services and was police CEO for a few years, although his hands were tied in this role,” he said. “He must be given a chance.”

Cover photo: Left: Malta Police Force 

What do you make of this former officer’s advice?