Cunupia residents flag gang activity, security gaps at TTPS crime forum

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has in­ten­si­fied its com­mu­ni­ty crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy in cen­tral Trinidad, with res­i­dents of Cunu­pia rais­ing con­cerns over gang ac­tiv­i­ty, busi­ness se­cu­ri­ty and de­clin­ing po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty dur­ing a high-lev­el en­gage­ment on Sat­ur­day.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Suzette Mar­tin led the lat­est ses­sion of the “Cof­fee and Con­ver­sa­tions” ini­tia­tive, held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cunu­pia Po­lice Sta­tion Coun­cil and the Cunu­pia Busi­ness Cham­ber, as part of on­go­ing ef­forts to gath­er in­tel­li­gence from com­mu­ni­ties and shape lo­cal polic­ing pri­or­i­ties.

The meet­ing brought to­geth­er res­i­dents, busi­ness op­er­a­tors, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, sta­tion coun­cil mem­bers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sev­er­al state agen­cies to out­line key pub­lic safe­ty chal­lenges in the dis­trict.

Among the is­sues raised were re­ports of gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty, the need for in­creased pa­trols, im­proved traf­fic en­force­ment, stronger pro­tec­tion for busi­ness­es, youth-re­lat­ed crime con­cerns, and gaps in emer­gency re­sponse ca­pac­i­ty.

Mar­tin said the TTPS is seek­ing to strength­en op­er­a­tional re­spons­es through di­rect en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties, stat­ing that ef­fec­tive polic­ing de­pends on shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty be­tween law en­force­ment and the pub­lic.

“Pub­lic safe­ty is not the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the po­lice ser­vice alone,” she said, adding that co­op­er­a­tion be­tween res­i­dents, busi­ness­es and the po­lice is es­sen­tial to re­duc­ing crime.

She urged res­i­dents to re­port sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty and as­sist po­lice in iden­ti­fy­ing emerg­ing threats, say­ing in­tel­li­gence gath­ered from the pub­lic re­mains crit­i­cal to op­er­a­tional plan­ning.

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Van­dana Mo­hit and head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre John­ny Abra­ham at­tend­ed the ses­sion and pledged con­tin­ued sup­port for in­ter-agency co­op­er­a­tion in ad­dress­ing crime and com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty con­cerns.

Mo­hit com­mend­ed the TTPS for ex­pand­ing di­rect en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties, while Abra­ham said co­or­di­nat­ed in­put from stake­hold­ers would strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­spons­es.

Po­lice of­fi­cials said con­cerns raised dur­ing the ses­sion will be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to dis­trict-lev­el op­er­a­tional plan­ning and tar­get­ed polic­ing strate­gies.

Fol­low­ing the meet­ing, of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a walk­a­bout in Cunu­pia, where res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers were en­cour­aged to re­port crime con­cerns di­rect­ly and en­gage with of­fi­cers on en­force­ment pri­or­i­ties and ser­vice de­liv­ery gaps.