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Saturday, February 22, 2025

DCP says more officers patrolling the streets

by

Shane Superville
28 days ago
20250125
Keith Donald, right, greets DCP Junior Benjamin during his walkabout with TTPS First Division police officers in Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

Keith Donald, right, greets DCP Junior Benjamin during his walkabout with TTPS First Division police officers in Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

ROGER JACOB

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A po­lice chase in El So­cor­ro yes­ter­day end­ed with the ar­rest of two sus­pects.

Po­lice said that of­fi­cers of the Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol (ERP) were dri­ving on Bound­ary Road, around 1 pm when they no­ticed a sil­ver Nis­san Ti­i­da speed­ing out of a near­by side street.

The of­fi­cers be­came sus­pi­cious and fol­lowed the car while try­ing to stop the dri­ver.

The car drove on­to the east­bound lane of the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way near the walkover but crashed on the shoul­der of the road.

Po­lice said the dri­ver ran out of the car and shot at of­fi­cers, as a sec­ond man, who was sit­ting in the front pas­sen­ger-side seat al­so ran off.

How­ev­er, po­lice caught up to the dri­ver and ar­rest­ed him.

The pas­sen­ger was caught by a team of of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), near a fast food restau­rant a short dis­tance away.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a walk­a­bout in down­town Port-of-Spain, hours lat­er, DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin said the ar­rest of both men was a tes­ta­ment to the ef­fec­tive­ness of a height­ened po­lice pres­ence. He said sim­i­lar pa­trols would be ini­ti­at­ed na­tion­wide as the State of Emer­gency (SoE) re­mains in ef­fect.

He said while cit­i­zens could be as­sured of faster re­sponse times as a re­sult of the height­ened ex­er­cis­es, crim­i­nals should re­think their ac­tiv­i­ties.

“The fact that we are out­side brings to bear that at any giv­en time you can see the po­lice and when crim­i­nals de­cide they want to do their own thing, at least the po­lice are there to spoil their fun in the city or any com­mu­ni­ty we are pa­trolling.

“You’ll see more ro­bust pa­trols, where po­lice will be deal­ing with ma­jor and mi­nor crimes.

“We al­so want law-abid­ing per­sons to know you can feel safe in the cities or any­where else be­cause the po­lice will be there. For those in­tent on break­ing the law, we will be on their case and we will bring them to jus­tice as we re­store law and or­der.”

Ben­jamin was flanked by of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion in­clud­ing from the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion and the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice as they spoke with busi­ness­peo­ple, road­side ven­dors and passers-by in a bid to of­fer com­fort through their pres­ence.

ACP Spe­cialised Sup­port Bri­an Sood­een, who al­so took part in the walk­a­bout, said of­fi­cers from the ca­nine unit would be de­ployed to as­sist of­fi­cers in tar­get­ed search­es for guns and drugs as he stressed that every unit of the po­lice ser­vice was be­ing called up­on to help in crime­fight­ing.

Sood­een, who al­so has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty over the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Unit, called on peo­ple vis­it­ing so­cial events in the lead-up to Car­ni­val to be mind­ful of their al­co­hol in­take as of­fi­cers would be on hand to per­form breathal­yser tests on the road and even at events.

“We of­fer vol­un­tary test­ing at the fetes to en­sure peo­ple are sober enough to dri­ve ve­hi­cles. Be safe on the road not just for your­self but oth­er dri­vers.”


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