Police to consult Plymouth residents on security post

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk has as­sured that there will be no po­lice post in To­ba­go with­out ad­e­quate con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers and res­i­dents in Ply­mouth.

At a po­lice brief­ing last Wednes­day, Kirk rec­om­mend­ed Ply­mouth as a lo­ca­tion for one of the 30 posts be­ing es­tab­lished na­tion­al­ly over the next four months by Gov­ern­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­veiled the ini­tia­tive in a so­cial me­dia post last week, not­ing it is aimed at en­hanc­ing se­cu­ri­ty and boost­ing po­lice-re­sponse times across the coun­try. She re­vealed 24 pro­posed lo­ca­tions in Trinidad, with the re­main­ing six still to be de­cid­ed.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Kirk said fur­ther dis­cus­sions with the com­mu­ni­ty and stake­hold­ers will be held be­fore the Ply­mouth pro­pos­al goes any fur­ther. He added that To­ba­go is a unique di­vi­sion due to its ge­og­ra­phy, and while Ply­mouth is not the on­ly area be­ing con­sid­ered, po­lice da­ta shows the vil­lage needs it the most.

He said, “The po­lice can­not op­er­ate ef­fec­tive­ly in iso­la­tion from the com­mu­ni­ty we serve. We there­fore would want to en­gage with the Ply­mouth com­mu­ni­ty, the rel­e­vant lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, busi­ness­es, com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions, faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, and that is to un­der­stand their con­cerns and iden­ti­fy suit­able lo­ca­tion and to en­sure the fa­cil­i­ty re­sponds to the ac­tu­al needs of the area.”

Kirk not­ed that be­ing based with­in the com­mu­ni­ty al­lows law en­force­ment to in­te­grate in­to the vil­lage.

“A po­lice post would there­fore not sim­ply be about putting a build­ing in Ply­mouth; it is al­so about polic­ing clos­er to the com­mu­ni­ty, im­prov­ing po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty, strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and en­hanc­ing our abil­i­ty to re­spond to in­ci­dents in a time­ly man­ner.”

How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged the views of the pub­lic must be heard to en­sure buy-in and a strong part­ner­ship.

“Ef­fec­tive polic­ing is most suc­cess­ful when the com­mu­ni­ty and the po­lice work to­geth­er,” he said.

He said the po­lice post would not be a small struc­ture as the mo­bile unit pre­vi­ous­ly sta­tioned in Scar­bor­ough.

Mean­while, Ply­mouth res­i­dent and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis agreed with Kirk that con­sul­ta­tion was re­quired. How­ev­er, she ac­cused the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) of be­ing silent on crime on the is­land, par­tic­u­lar­ly an in­crease in rob­beries.

“Our rep­re­sen­ta­tives have fall­en asleep on the job al­so be­cause they are not speak­ing up or speak­ing out as it re­lates to those is­sues and giv­ing the im­pres­sion like all is well,” she said.

Cud­joe-Lewis la­belled the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) as a fail­ure in the fight against crime.

“By now, we know the SoE is not in­tend­ed to fight crime. It is about sup­press­ing peo­ple’s pow­er and the Gov­ern­ment fight­ing against peo­ple they per­ceive are not against their side,” she said.

She said the SoE con­tin­ues to hurt To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try and queried why the TPP-led To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and the To­ba­go MPs con­tin­ue to sup­port it.

“This SoE, which has crip­pled our tourism econ­o­my, tourism eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in To­ba­go, is not work­ing out in our best in­ter­est be­cause crime is still at an all-time high ... Where are our as­sem­bly­men? Where is the To­ba­go voice in Par­lia­ment and na­tion­al is­sues?”

On Thurs­day, Ply­mouth/Black Rock area rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kern Alex­is told Guardian Me­dia he would wel­come the po­lice post in his com­mu­ni­ty, adding he trust­ed the po­lice da­ta if it showed that the area need­ed fur­ther polic­ing.