Cherisse Moe

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki says there has been a 34 per cent re­duc­tion in crime in the Mar­aval area over the last year. Ewats­ki is claim­ing the de­crease is a re­sult of the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing ini­tia­tive im­ple­ment­ed to in­tro­duce a more mod­ern and in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach to polic­ing.

Ewats­ki made the state­ment at a pub­lic stake­hold­er meet­ing host­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Sec­re­tari­at, at the Mar­aval Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, on Thurs­day evening. The sparse­ly at­tend­ed meet­ing was staged to eval­u­ate the ef­fec­tive­ness of the project. "Sta­tis­tics show that crime in the area is down by 34 per cent. Po­lice of­fi­cers are work­ing to pro­tect and serve with pride," said Ewats­ki.

"I al­so have re­ports that po­lice of­fi­cers have been able to re­spond and ap­pre­hend in­di­vid­u­als leav­ing the scenes of the crimes. I am very pleased with that." How­ev­er, Ewats­ki could not di­vulge fur­ther de­tails when pressed by Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert.

Im­bert said he had "no idea" what the ini­tia­tive en­tailed and there­fore had lit­tle faith that it had made any sig­nif­i­cant dent in the crime sit­u­a­tion. "How do you mea­sure that? I'm try­ing to un­der­stand how you ar­rived at that fig­ure," Im­bert asked. Un­fazed, Ewats­ki, who said he lived in the com­mu­ni­ty, said, "Based on the sta­tis­tics we keep, I am say­ing that crime has re­duced by 34 per cent. That is the in­for­ma­tion I have."

Not sat­is­fied with Ewats­ki's ex­pla­na­tion, Im­bert called on him to "please ex­plain your point." Im­bert said: "I am not aware that there has been any re­duc­tion in crime. In fact, I know there has been an in­crease in the num­ber of rob­beries in the area. That wasn't the case pre­vi­ous­ly. I can­not say there is any im­prove­ment as a re­sult of this ini­tia­tive. "I don't even know what the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing is all about."

Res­i­dent Stephanie Thomas echoed Im­bert's sen­ti­ments. Thomas said the po­lice were "too un­just" and did not have an am­i­ca­ble re­la­tion­ship with mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. Thomas said she made sev­er­al re­ports to the po­lice about rob­beries she had wit­nessed, but to no avail. She said she now had to take mat­ters in­to her own hands, as the po­lice "doh care about we."

"I will be sharp­en­ing my blade back and forth. I have two girl chil­dren and I have to pro­tect them. I have had it up to here with the po­lice," she said. "The po­lice and them not ef­fec­tive. I don't know what wrong with them. "I called the sta­tion to re­port a rob­bery I saw. Up to this day, I still wait­ing on them to come."

Coun­cil­lor for the area Na­dine Ro­many called for a po­lice youth club to be set up in the area. She said while there were in­creased po­lice pa­trols in the com­mu­ni­ty, she was not to­tal­ly sat­is­fied that the ini­tia­tive was hav­ing the de­sired ef­fect. An­oth­er res­i­dent, Lau­rlyn Mc Kain, who blamed the poor turnout on a lack of ad­ver­tis­ing by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, said while she un­der­stood po­lice could not be every­where all the time, there was need for them to take their jobs more se­ri­ous­ly.

"We need more po­lice pres­ence, es­pe­cial­ly for the traf­fic on morn­ings. Dri­vers do­ing what they want. The po­lice and traf­fic war­dens sup­posed to be out there, be­cause old peo­ple like me hav­ing a hard time," she said.