SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is not in sup­port of giv­ing big­ger guns to mu­nic­i­pal po­lice.Warn­er was speak­ing to re­porters at his Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy of­fice yes­ter­day.Warn­er said, "I don't know if big­ger guns would be the an­swer to ad­dress­ing crime...I am shocked to have read that big­ger guns are need­ed to solve crime. If I we were to take that ad­vice to the full, a can­non in the hands of these of­fi­cers would even be bet­ter."

The min­is­ter said high­er po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty and a high­er lev­el of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing was need­ed.On Fri­day, Louis Lee Sing, the Port-of-Spain may­or, called for big­ger guns to be giv­en to the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice force to de­ter crim­i­nals who ha­rass his con­trac­tors when they work in the city's crime hot spots.Lee Singh told a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) hear­ing at Tow­er D, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, that crim­i­nals are un­afraid when con­front­ed by city po­lice of­fi­cers armed with hand­guns.

Plans to re­cruit5,000 SRPs

Warn­er said the joint army/po­lice pa­trols would bring ad­di­tion­al strength to the po­lice ser­vice. He said the po­lice ser­vice was go­ing on a very ag­gres­sive re­cruit­ment dri­ve to re­cruit 5,000 Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice­men.Warn­er said there are al­so plans afoot to strength­en the coast guard and the army to bring the De­fense Force up to par.

Warn­er said the De­fense (Amend­ment) Bill is re­ceiv­ing tremen­dous sup­port from the pub­lic. He said there are a few in­di­vid­u­als and de­trac­tors bent on steer­ing pub­lic sup­port away from the bill for their own po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es.