DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Nine days af­ter three po­lice posts were es­tab­lished across Trinidad, res­i­dents and work­ers in the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties say the in­creased po­lice pres­ence is pro­vid­ing some re­as­sur­ance, al­though ques­tions re­main about whether they will lead to a re­duc­tion in crime.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed two of the three lo­ca­tions, the Ed­die Hart Recre­ation Ground in Tacarigua and Grand Bazaar in Val­sayn, to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion on the ground.

At Ed­die Hart, armed of­fi­cers were seen leav­ing the new­ly es­tab­lished post, while oth­ers re­mained at the fa­cil­i­ty be­fore head­ing out. Ques­tions about op­er­a­tions at the site, how­ev­er, were re­ferred to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit.

At Grand Bazaar, the at­mos­phere was qui­eter, with a pa­trol al­ready out con­duct­ing du­ties.

One of­fi­cer, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said po­lice were work­ing with the re­sources avail­able and ac­knowl­edged con­cerns raised by mem­bers of the pub­lic, in­clud­ing com­plaints about ve­hi­cles block­ing ac­cess to busi­ness­es. The of­fi­cer said po­lice had been re­spond­ing through mo­bile and foot pa­trols.

De­spite the height­ened vis­i­bil­i­ty, some res­i­dents re­main un­con­vinced that the posts alone will curb crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“It varies. It gives a lit­tle more form of safe­ty. But I don’t re­al­ly think that would solve any crime, to be hon­est,” said couri­er Jerome Joseph.

At Ed­die Hart, how­ev­er, the re­ac­tion was more favourable.

Groundskeep­er Jer­ry Richards said the area had long been af­fect­ed by rob­beries and oth­er crimes be­fore the po­lice post was in­tro­duced.

“All the time it nev­er used to have a po­lice post, ban­dits used to come grab peo­ple’s bags, phones and mon­ey. We al­so had rapes at the Ed­die Hart grounds and rob­beries when peo­ple were down by the bridge,” Richards said.

He said the po­lice pres­ence has made users of the fa­cil­i­ty feel safer, in­clud­ing jog­gers, foot­ballers, crick­eters and oth­er vis­i­tors.

Richards al­so re­called the role pre­vi­ous­ly played by the Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion’s (TPRC) mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, al­though he not­ed their re­sponse was not al­ways con­sis­tent.

“Now and then the cor­po­ra­tion po­lice used to help out with crime and what­ev­er. If I lodge a com­plaint with them, some­times they would come, some­times they would not,” he said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, TPRC chair­man Josi­ah Austin said mu­nic­i­pal po­lice con­tin­ue to pa­trol the Food Vil­lage at Ed­die Hart and sur­round­ing ar­eas at night and have al­so been asked to as­sist at Grand Bazaar and Ed­die Hart.

“As it stands right now, we con­tin­ue to have our mu­nic­i­pal po­lice man the Food Vil­lage and sur­round­ing ar­eas through­out the week, at least in the night time. As I know, and from the up­dates I have re­ceived, our mu­nic­i­pal po­lice were al­so asked to man the Grand Bazaar and Ed­die Hart ar­eas,” Austin said.

He not­ed that mu­nic­i­pal po­lice had pre­vi­ous­ly helped ap­pre­hend sus­pects in­volved in sev­er­al in­ci­dents over the past two years.

“I must ad­mit that in at least three in­ci­dents over the last year to two years, our mu­nic­i­pal po­lice were on hand to ap­pre­hend per­pe­tra­tors in­volved in mi­nor of­fences. So, we con­tin­ue to do what we have to do through our cor­po­ra­tion and with the as­sis­tance of oth­er cor­po­ra­tions,” he said.

Austin said the cor­po­ra­tion was still await­ing clar­i­ty on who would ul­ti­mate­ly be re­spon­si­ble for staffing the new po­lice posts.

“We had not known who would have manned it be­fore and our mu­nic­i­pal po­lice were called to as­sist in do­ing such. So, I hope that in due time they will do what is nec­es­sary to de­ter­mine who is re­al­ly sup­posed to man the space and the ac­tion plan mov­ing for­ward,” he said.

He added that mem­bers of the pub­lic had been con­tact­ing his of­fice seek­ing in­for­ma­tion on how the posts would op­er­ate and what lev­el of ser­vice res­i­dents could ex­pect. Austin said the pub­lic would be up­dat­ed once those de­tails were fi­nalised.

Co­conut ven­dor Roger Samuel al­so wel­comed the po­lice pres­ence at Ed­die Hart, say­ing crime had been a long­stand­ing prob­lem in the area.

“Be­fore the po­lice post, it used to have re­al thiev­ing in­side this com­pound. Peo­ple miss­ing things and all kinds of things. Plen­ty peo­ple used to come and do what they want and get away with it,” Samuel said.

Asked about the new arrange­ment, he replied: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dem up and down de place. Com­fort­able with that, man.”

DCP Mar­tin: Strat­e­gy to strength­en pres­ence

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Suzette Mar­tin yes­ter­day said the po­lice posts form part of a wider strat­e­gy aimed at im­prov­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment.

“The po­lice posts form part of our broad­er op­er­a­tional strat­e­gy to strength­en po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties,” Mar­tin told Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp.

“The fo­cus is not sim­ply on es­tab­lish­ing a po­lice pres­ence, but on hav­ing our of­fi­cers ac­tive­ly en­gage with res­i­dents, busi­ness­es and oth­er stake­hold­ers while gath­er­ing in­tel­li­gence, re­spond­ing to con­cerns and pro­vid­ing a vis­i­ble de­ter­rent to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Mar­tin said po­lice were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing op­er­a­tions and pub­lic feed­back to as­sess the ef­fec­tive­ness of the ini­tia­tive.

“While it is still ear­ly to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment, the ini­tial feed­back has been en­cour­ag­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to in­creased vis­i­bil­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­ac­tion and pub­lic re­as­sur­ance,” she said.

She al­so urged res­i­dents and busi­ness­es to work along­side of­fi­cers by shar­ing in­for­ma­tion and rais­ing con­cerns.

“Im­por­tant­ly, we want the com­mu­ni­ty to be an ac­tive part­ner in this ini­tia­tive. I am en­cour­ag­ing res­i­dents and busi­ness­es to en­gage with our of­fi­cers, share in­for­ma­tion and raise con­cerns ear­ly. Your in­for­ma­tion and feed­back help us bet­ter un­der­stand what is hap­pen­ing on the ground and re­spond more ef­fec­tive­ly,” Mar­tin said.

Mean­while, the Gov­ern­ment is con­tin­u­ing with the broad­er roll­out of the pro­gramme.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Fri­day that six po­lice posts had been com­plet­ed, though on­ly three were cur­rent­ly op­er­a­tional. She said ten posts are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by the end of Oc­to­ber, with the Gov­ern­ment aim­ing to es­tab­lish 30 by year-end.