Can­dle­light vig­ils have be­come very vi­su­al demon­stra­tions of the pain felt by cit­i­zens as more lives are snuffed out by mur­der­ers. They have been tak­ing place with dis­turb­ing reg­u­lar­i­ty of late as res­i­dents mo­bilise, unit­ed in grief in the af­ter­math of heinous crimes.

Last week in New Grant, Princes Town, res­i­dents dressed in white took part in a solemn pro­ces­sion to the house where 16-year-old Shenelle and her broth­er Ke­ston Singh, 21, were mur­dered. Two weeks ago, there was a vig­il for En­ri­co Guer­ra and his five-year-old daugh­ter Ani­ka, vic­tims of a dead­ly shoot­ing in Moru­ga.

These peace­ful march­es, where be­reaved rel­a­tives and friends make emo­tion­al ap­peals for peace and safe­ty, should be send­ing strong sig­nals to Gov­ern­ment and those in charge of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty about the lev­els of de­spair across the coun­try.

In case those events didn’t get their at­ten­tion, the state­ment from the 6th Av­enue Mal­ick Vil­lage Coun­cil about the four mur­ders that have rocked that com­mu­ni­ty since Wednes­day, should have been a loud enough cry for help to war­rant swift in­ter­ven­tion.

How­ev­er, based on the clichéd and tone-deaf re­spons­es from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and var­i­ous heads of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices at a me­dia brief­ing last Fri­day, ap­pro­pri­ate re­spons­es are not like­ly.

The usu­al promis­es of proac­tive polic­ing and joint ex­er­cis­es—state­ments that do not in­spire con­fi­dence—high­light the ex­tent of the dis­con­nect be­tween cit­i­zens and the peo­ple in charge of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

With the mur­der count hurtling to­wards an­oth­er un­wel­come fig­ure, the pop­u­la­tion could de­rive no com­fort from state­ments made at that me­dia brief­ing. Mr Hinds’ at­tempt to shift fo­cus, quot­ing scrip­ture in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia’s Akash Sama­roo, was par­tic­u­lar­ly jar­ring.

So too was the claim by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin, made a day ear­li­er, that crime is not out of con­trol, even as he ad­mit­ted there was an in­crease in homi­cides in three polic­ing di­vi­sions.

These com­ments, on top of the promis­es of in­ter­ven­tions that seem doomed to fail, pile hope­less­ness on the pain felt across the coun­try, as more bru­tal killings are record­ed.

The au­thor­i­ties don’t seem to be pay­ing at­ten­tion to the peo­ple.

Every can­dle­light gath­er­ing is a col­lec­tive cry for help. The ap­peal from Mal­ick was a di­rect ap­peal af­ter let­ters to their par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Adri­an Leonce, went unan­swered.

The sit­u­a­tion in that com­mu­ni­ty is dire. In less than a week, Josi­ah Reid, 25, Qua­cy Em­manuel, 39, Hakim Mitchell, 36, and Ju­nior Ol­liv­er­ie, 54, fell vic­tim to gun vi­o­lence.

The vil­lage coun­cil’s very valid con­cerns about the ef­fect of crime and vi­o­lence on the well-be­ing of res­i­dents, par­tic­u­lar­ly the chil­dren, de­mand an im­me­di­ate re­sponse. The si­lence in re­sponse to their ur­gent ap­peal is not just deaf­en­ing, it is in­sen­si­tive and dis­re­spect­ful.

It is bad enough that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) strug­gles to live up to its mot­to to “pro­tect and serve with pride.”

It is even worse that elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, whose du­ty it is to serve the peo­ple, seem to be con­stant­ly vac­il­lat­ing be­tween de­nial and de­flect­ing blame. And while they do, more lives are lost to the un­re­lent­ing vi­o­lence.

They must lis­ten to the voice of the peo­ple, not on­ly at elec­tion time but on every is­sue that dis­rupts com­mu­ni­ties and threat­ens the qual­i­ty of life on our twin is­lands.