Police launch mobile station in Scarborough after crime surge

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

A stretch down­town Scar­bor­ough plauged with mul­ti­ple rob­beries, shoot­ings, and mur­ders has re­ceived a per­ma­nent po­lice pres­ence af­ter the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty stepped in to fix a bro­ken down po­lice mo­bile unit.

The ve­hi­cle, which had been out of ser­vice for some time, is now sta­tioned at the Scar­bor­ough Port, di­rect­ly op­po­site a su­per­mar­ket where three work­ers were at­tacked and robbed while asleep just days ago.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice Earl Elie said the ve­hi­cle had been in­op­er­a­ble “for the last cou­ple of years” be­fore it was re­paired this week by a mem­ber of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and re­turned to the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion.

“That mo­bile unit has been in To­ba­go Di­vi­sion for a num­ber of years. How­ev­er, for the last cou­ple of years, it has been in­op­er­a­ble,” Elie said. “Due to the kind ges­ture of a mem­ber of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, it was re­paired, and on­ly yes­ter­day we re­ceived that in a con­di­tion that it could be used once again.”

The ve­hi­cle now pro­vides the on­ly vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence along a sec­tion of Scar­bor­ough that has seen sev­er­al vi­o­lent in­ci­dents in the past year. Po­lice say the lo­ca­tion was de­lib­er­ate­ly cho­sen be­cause of its his­to­ry and its dis­tance from the main sta­tion.

“Pri­or to re­ceiv­ing it, it was part of our in­ten­tion to have it lo­cat­ed there,” Elie said. “So the ben­e­fits we hope to achieve from it is one, more vis­i­bil­i­ty. Per­sons see­ing the po­lice will, of course, should have a re­duced sense of fear of crime. It al­lows us to treat with sit­u­a­tions that ex­ist…in the vicin­i­ty of that lo­ca­tion.”

He added: “Third­ly, the Scar­bor­ough sta­tion is some sig­nif­i­cant dis­tance away from down­town Scar­bor­ough, so it caters and al­lows per­sons re­quest­ing to make re­ports to do so at that lo­ca­tion. Of course, it is not in­tend­ed to re­place the Scar­bor­ough sta­tion.”

The mo­bile unit’s re­turn fol­lows a pledge made by To­ba­go’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty last year, dur­ing a vis­it from then Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and for­mer Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land. At that meet­ing, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the po­lice by help­ing re­pair out-of-ser­vice ve­hi­cles.