Singh urges police professionalism at Sangre Grande town meeting

RALPH BAN­WARIE

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Rishi Singh has called on of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to con­duct them­selves with “class and dig­ni­ty” while strength­en­ing their en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties through con­sis­tent foot pa­trols and re­la­tion­ship-build­ing.

Singh was speak­ing at a San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion town meet­ing held at the SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege Au­di­to­ri­um on Cu­napo South­ern Main Road, San­gre Grande.

He re­flect­ed on his ear­ly days as a young of­fi­cer at­tached to the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion, not­ing that he of­ten ex­tend­ed his pa­trols be­yond the stan­dard beat, from the round­about to the old post of­fice, and at times on foot to ar­eas around North-East­ern Col­lege and near­by schools along Gra­ham Street off Ojoe Road.

“Po­lice pres­ence says a lot, and much in­for­ma­tion is ob­tained from mem­bers of the pub­lic,” he said, adding that of­fi­cers should fol­low his ex­am­ple by ex­pand­ing their vis­i­bil­i­ty with­in com­mu­ni­ties.

Singh said lim­it­ing pa­trols to fixed points re­duces op­por­tu­ni­ties for mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment with res­i­dents. He stressed that reg­u­lar in­ter­ac­tion with the pub­lic and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is es­sen­tial for ef­fec­tive “tac­it in­tel­li­gence” gath­er­ing, which he said sup­ports safer com­mu­ni­ties.

He al­so raised con­cerns based on com­plaints he had re­viewed, in­clud­ing in­ad­e­quate pa­trols around schools, stu­dents leav­ing school com­pounds un­su­per­vised, fights be­tween stu­dents in dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions, and re­ports from res­i­dents that com­plaints made at the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion were not al­ways act­ed up­on.

“I am speak­ing to large and in­tel­li­gent peo­ple. I ex­pect class and dig­ni­ty from mem­bers of the TTPS,” Singh said, adding that he was dis­turbed by the neg­a­tive feed­back and that of­fi­cers must “pro­tect and serve with pride.”

Ad­dress­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive and com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns, Singh ref­er­enced a case in­volv­ing a busi­ness­man who re­port­ed­ly ap­plied for a firearm user’s li­cence (FUL) for over 13 years with­out suc­cess. He said he would not pro­vide im­me­di­ate an­swers but would raise the mat­ter with his ex­ec­u­tive at the next meet­ing.

On the is­sue of traf­fic man­age­ment, Singh warned that re­lo­cat­ing taxi stands away from cen­tral busi­ness ar­eas could cre­ate con­di­tions that in­crease vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to crime.

He urged mem­bers of the pub­lic not to re­strict en­gage­ment with po­lice to town hall meet­ings alone, not­ing that lead­er­ship with­in the East­ern Di­vi­sion re­mains ac­ces­si­ble. While ac­knowl­edg­ing his own re­spon­si­bil­i­ties be­tween To­ba­go and Trinidad, he said ap­point­ments can be made to ad­dress com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns.

“There is quite a bit of ex­pe­ri­ence up there. You can ac­cess lead­er­ship be­yond a town meet­ing,” Singh said.

He al­so point­ed to grow­ing mis­trust on so­cial me­dia, not­ing that while pub­lic per­cep­tion is in­flu­enced by po­lice con­duct, there is al­so room for im­prove­ment with­in the ser­vice.

Singh fur­ther ap­pealed to the pub­lic to sup­port law en­force­ment ef­forts and dis­cour­age il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty with­in com­mu­ni­ties. He al­so urged of­fi­cers to take stronger ac­tion against delin­quent taxi dri­vers who fa­cil­i­tate or en­able crim­i­nal or an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour among young peo­ple.

He en­cour­aged con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween po­lice, the Cham­ber of Com­merce, and lo­cal cor­po­ra­tions to im­prove com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty and ser­vice de­liv­ery.

In­spec­tor Kistow, Of­fi­cer in Charge of the Sta­tion Coun­cil, re­port­ed that dis­cus­sions had been held with taxi dri­vers, who agreed to a new des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tion ef­fec­tive June 1.

Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer and Youth De­vel­op­ment Of­fi­cer, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Fe­lix Per­sad, re­ceived praise from mem­bers of the pub­lic for his work in re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing at-risk stu­dents from both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools through pro­grammes run at the Po­lice Youth Club in Brook­lyn Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande.

Per­sad al­so chaired the town meet­ing.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Eti­enne, As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dents Carl­ton Lee Tang, Steel Williams, and Rus­sel, In­spec­tors Cal­en­der and Harp­er, and Sergeants Leon, Fran­cis, and Hanooman were al­so in at­ten­dance.