Tobago police welcome joint security posts to fight crime

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials in To­ba­go have wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish joint po­lice-army posts in com­mu­ni­ties across both is­lands, say­ing any ad­di­tion­al re­sources would strength­en the fight against crime.

Speak­ing at the week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk said the ini­tia­tive would pro­vide fur­ther sup­port to law en­force­ment ef­forts.

“We wel­come any ini­tia­tive which will lend more re­sources to our fight against crime.

“Now the dis­cus­sion has been held, and we are yet to be fi­nalised. How­ev­er, we have in mind that any ini­tia­tive in terms of the po­lice posts would be lo­cat­ed with­in our Shir­van Road Po­lice Dis­trict.”

Kirk said Ply­mouth was one area they would con­sid­er for the es­tab­lish­ment of a po­lice post, as it is heav­i­ly com­mer­cialised, once the rel­e­vant dis­cus­sions are con­clud­ed.

De­spite record­ing an in­crease in Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes (SRCs) and hav­ing al­most dou­bled its homi­cide fig­ures for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to Ju­ly 31, To­ba­go po­lice of­fi­cials are urg­ing the pub­lic not to be dis­cour­aged from vis­it­ing the is­land.

Con­firm­ing that To­ba­go record­ed sev­en mur­ders in 2026, com­pared to four dur­ing the same pe­ri­od last year, Kirk in­sist­ed that the is­land re­mains safe.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges faced dur­ing that pe­ri­od, he said po­lice had re­spond­ed by im­ple­ment­ing Ac­tive Di­rec­tive Pa­trols, which saw the six polic­ing dis­tricts in To­ba­go be­ing zoned, fol­lowed by the in­tro­duc­tion of 24-hour pa­trols.

A break­down of the mur­ders clas­si­fied two as gang-re­lat­ed, two as reprisals, one as a re­sult of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, while two re­main un­clas­si­fied at this time.

Kirk said Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes in­creased from 480 to 487, with the most preva­lent of­fence be­ing break-ins. Com­mer­cial theft ac­count­ed for 30 per cent of those in­ci­dents, while res­i­den­tial theft ac­count­ed for 70 per cent.

Ad­mit­ting that po­lice had en­coun­tered chal­lenges in re­duc­ing and main­tain­ing low­er Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes fig­ures, he said this stemmed from dif­fi­cul­ties in get­ting mem­bers of the pub­lic to change old habits and im­ple­ment safe­ty tips.

Mean­while, ASP Ma­halia Bac­chus said po­lice were work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to push their 26 per cent de­tec­tion rate up­wards, adding that they have been en­gag­ing busi­ness­es, youth groups, faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers to forge stronger re­la­tions.

Vow­ing to dis­rupt crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, Bac­chus con­firmed that 15 Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) had been is­sued in To­ba­go, with 13 peo­ple so far tak­en in­to cus­tody.

Of this num­ber, three peo­ple have been charged, while an­oth­er three are ex­pect­ed to be charged.

Re­gard­ing the pro­pos­al to have pris­on­ers clean pub­lic spaces, Kirk said no dis­cus­sions had been held with re­spect to this just yet.