Tarouba police-army post takes shape as residents weigh safety, trust

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

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Un­der grey skies and in­ter­mit­tent rain­fall yes­ter­day, work­ers con­tin­ued as­sem­bling the met­al frame­work of a new joint po­lice and army post in Tarou­ba, bring­ing Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive one step clos­er to re­al­i­ty.

The struc­ture, be­ing erect­ed on a con­crete foun­da­tion near Tar­o­dale, is al­ready draw­ing mixed but large­ly pos­i­tive re­ac­tions from res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers, many of whom say a stronger se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence could help curb crime and im­prove re­sponse times.

For 75-year-old Tarou­ba res­i­dent Harold Badri, the de­ci­sion is a straight­for­ward one.

“Yes, it is very good. A very good move,” he said.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, res­i­dent Bharath Sam­lal was equal­ly sup­port­ive, say­ing the area needs a faster po­lice re­sponse.

“I glad they build­ing the post by Tar­o­dale there be­cause there does on­ly have ban­dits and mur­ders, so that will help the peo­ple; the faster the po­lice will be around,” Sam­lal said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Win­ston Ramjohn, was dis­mis­sive of those op­pos­ing the con­struc­tion.

“They don’t know bet­ter, they don’t know bet­ter. I hope they get some sense in their head,” he said.

But while the pres­ence of po­lice is be­ing wel­comed, some busi­ness own­ers are tak­ing a more cau­tious view re­gard­ing the in­volve­ment of the mil­i­tary.

Michelle Bap­tiste, a busi­ness own­er at South Park Shop­ping Mall, said she was pleased that a se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence would be es­tab­lished close to the com­mer­cial cen­tre, where she said cus­tomers want to feel safe.

“I am hap­py that there will be a pres­ence close to South Park. My cus­tomers need to feel safe,” Bap­tiste said.

How­ev­er, she said she re­mains con­cerned about the army’s role, cit­ing past in­stances in which she claimed mil­i­tary per­son­nel may have abused their au­thor­i­ty.

“Per­sons are a bit wary of the army if they are not work­ing re­al­ly side by side with the po­lice, where­by we will be re­as­sured as cit­i­zens that the army will not just come in and abuse us in any way.”

Bap­tiste al­so raised con­cerns about pub­lic trust in the Po­lice Ser­vice, ar­gu­ing that in­creased se­cu­ri­ty must be ac­com­pa­nied by stronger ac­count­abil­i­ty mea­sures.

She sug­gest­ed that su­per­vi­sors should be present with groups of of­fi­cers and that body cam­eras should be used con­sis­tent­ly.

“I think the body­cams at all times will be ex­cel­lent as well be­cause again there is no trust,” she said.

For Bap­tiste, the de­vel­op­ment brings both re­as­sur­ance and cau­tion.

“I feel hap­py on one side and cau­tious on one side,” she said.

Her com­ments come as Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, on Fri­day, de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s wider plan to es­tab­lish 30 po­lice-army posts in com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a state­ment is­sued by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, Gue­var­ro dis­missed crit­i­cism of the ini­tia­tive, say­ing it was “pass­ing strange” that peo­ple claim­ing to have se­cu­ri­ty ex­per­tise could fail to un­der­stand the pur­pose of the strat­e­gy.

He said the TTPS would re­main fo­cused on its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty.

But Tar­o­dale res­i­dent Ase­nio Thomas be­lieves the suc­cess of the ini­tia­tive will de­pend on more than sim­ply putting a po­lice-army post in a com­mu­ni­ty.

Thomas said the post should pro­vide a faster re­sponse and could help quell crime in the area, but warned that its im­pact would de­pend on the lev­el of ef­fort be­hind it.

“It’s some­thing where the ef­fect of it de­pends on how much ef­fort is put in­to it,” he said.

Thomas be­lieves res­i­dents must al­so play a role in tack­ling crime.

“For some­thing to change, it needs not on­ly the po­lice but the peo­ple. It needs a joint ef­fort,” he said.

He said the post would pro­vide a vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence, but should not be viewed as a com­plete so­lu­tion to crime.

“Plac­ing a po­lice post there will show pres­ence, but it’s not a one-stop,” Thomas said.