Long await­ed new­ly de­signed uni­forms will be in­tro­duced in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) with­in the next few weeks, says Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

The uni­forms will have a spe­cial­ly de­signed belt which can ac­com­mo­date hand­cuffs, ba­tons, tasers, and pep­per spray.

Speak­ing at a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing at the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro con­stituen­cy of­fice on Wednes­day, Grif­fith said the new uni­forms are part of the trans­for­ma­tion of the TTPS.

Grif­fith al­so re­it­er­at­ed his plans to set up a spe­cial unit to mon­i­tor ac­tiv­i­ties around the na­tion's schools. In ad­di­tion, a unit sim­i­lar to the dis­band­ed Po­lice Ma­rine Unit will be es­tab­lished to pa­trol coastal ar­eas of the coun­try.

Grif­fith said the chop­pi­ness of the At­lantic Ocean pre­sent­ed spe­cial dif­fi­cul­ties with coastal pa­trols and ac­qui­si­tion of suit­able ves­sels may not be fea­si­ble since the T&T Coast Guard al­ready had them as part of their fleet. He added that drones will be used to mon­i­tor the coasts.

The Com­mis­sion­er said he is work­ing to erad­i­cate the ar­ro­gance some po­lice of­fi­cers to dis­play to the pub­lic and is en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to re­port these of­fi­cers so that they they can be re­mind­ed about prop­er cus­tomer ser­vice.

MP Rush­ton Paray said he want­ed more pa­trols on the 17 miles of beach front where beach house guests are of­ten robbed and beat­en. Com­mu­ni­ty Lia­sion of­fi­cer of bpTT Matthew Pierre called for bet­ter se­cu­ri­ty to be pro­vid­ed to pro­tect en­er­gy as­sets in the east­ern re­gion.

Ma­yaro res­i­dent Shama Per­sad said he wel­comed the new po­lice unit to help stu­dents. He said many of them are shoplift­ing. Oth­ers res­i­dents re­port­ed that drugs are be­ing sold in and around schools in the area.