Geisha Kow­lessar

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er yes­ter­day read the ri­ot act to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and his charges, vow­ing that if crime is not re­duced he will be­come their en­e­my. Mur­ders, Warn­er said, had be­come so fre­quent that they trig­gered se­ri­ous cause for con­cern, es­pe­cial­ly over the per­for­mance of the po­lice.

Warn­er was speak­ing at the launch of the Po­lice Car­a­van at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Speak­ing di­rect­ly to Gibbs, Warn­er said: "With me, you and your men would have quite a friend...any­thing you can do to re­duce crime in this coun­try, Com­mis­sion­er, I shall be your friend. "But I tell you open­ly that if the crime in this coun­try does not go down, I shall be every po­lice­man's en­e­my."

The days of po­lice dri­ving with their win­dows up have al­so end­ed, as Warn­er told them to get out of their tint­ed ve­hi­cles and walk the streets. "I ex­pect the po­lice­men to dri­ve not in their air-con­di­tioned ve­hi­cle, but with their glass down, and to ask the neigh­bours, 'How are you, my friend? How are the chil­dren?' "Leave your ve­hi­cles, men, walk the street some­times and shake peo­ple's hand. That must not be the ex­cep­tion, my friends in the Po­lice Ser­vice, that must be the norm."

He al­so chas­tised po­lice who, be­cause of their rank and role in spe­cialised sec­tions, be­lieved com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing was not for them. "Once you have on the po­lice uni­form, whether SRP (Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice) or reg­u­lar, you are com­mu­ni­ty po­lice," Warn­er said. "All po­lice of­fi­cers must be­have in a way where they can re­gain the pub­lic's trust once more...they must help to bring back the coun­try from fear."

Warn­er al­so threw his full sup­port be­hind the Po­lice Car­a­van, but warned that it must bring re­sults for cit­i­zens. "We must have a mur­der-free week, a mur­der-free fort­night, a mur­der-free month and then a mur­der-free year...noth­ing less is ac­cept­ed," he said. He rem­i­nisced about his child­hood days, say­ing that at the age of ten his great­est de­sire was to be­come a po­lice of­fi­cer.

This de­sire, Warn­er said, sprout­ed when the po­lice band came to his rur­al com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Claro to play for vil­lagers. "And to­day I ask my­self, where have we gone wrong? Where have the po­lice gone? Here now I am the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and my role is to de­vel­op the Po­lice Ser­vice to what it was in the old days." He said in the "old days," crime was at an all-time low be­cause there was peace, love and trust.

"What­ev­er was good in the past and worked well we must take that and make it work now." Warn­er al­so called on the com­mu­ni­ty and stake­hold­ers to strength­en ties with the Po­lice Ser­vice. Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki wel­comed Warn­er's stance, say­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty was vi­tal. Tack­ling crime, Ewats­ki added, was an on­go­ing process which in­clud­ed re­view­ing ini­tia­tives.

MORE?IN­FO

The Po­lice Car­a­van is aimed at sen­si­tis­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic about the roles and func­tions of dif­fer­ent units with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice and fos­ter greater com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions. It will be mov­ing to south Trinidad next.