An­na- Lisa Paul

A to­tal of 35 po­lice of­fi­cers from three po­lice di­vi­sions and the E999 Com­mand Cen­tre were on Thurs­day com­mend­ed for their brav­ery and ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty.

In pre­sent­ing the of­fi­cers with their awards, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob de­scribed the in­cen­tives as “in­creased im­pe­tus” to en­cour­age and mo­ti­vate of­fi­cers on pa­trol to get more ac­tive and en­gaged whilst on the beat.

Dur­ing a brief cer­e­mo­ny at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Ja­cob said the ini­tia­tive arose out of the new­ly-es­tab­lished Ac­tive Di­rect­ed Grid Pa­trol Sys­tem (ADG­PS).

The ADG­PS was im­ple­ment­ed to help im­prove the re­sponse times by po­lice of­fi­cers to crimes in progress.

In­di­cat­ing that of­fi­cers are be­ing pro­vid­ed with ad­di­tion­al train­ing as part of the ac­cel­er­at­ed re­wards sys­tem for pa­trol of­fi­cers, Ja­cob said the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Unit was the first to ben­e­fit, as 42 of­fi­cers were com­mend­ed for their work on the na­tion’s high­ways and by-ways.

Hap­py to wit­ness the pos­i­tive ap­proach which has now spread across the var­i­ous polic­ing di­vi­sions, Ja­cob said the 35 re­cip­i­ents had been in­stru­men­tal in ar­rest­ing sev­er­al per­pe­tra­tors.

He said un­for­tu­nate­ly, they had al­so car­ried out op­er­a­tions which re­sult­ed in death for some who chose to con­front po­lice dur­ing the last two weeks.

He warned would-be crim­i­nals, “The TTPS re­mains strong and re­silient.”

He added, “In every po­lice di­vi­sion, the of­fi­cers are mo­ti­vat­ed and they are prop­er­ly equipped with the rel­e­vant tools and the mind­set to con­tin­ue pro­tect­ing the cit­i­zens of T&T.

“There is no doubt that in the last few months, we see they are do­ing a very, very good job at it.”

He re­in­forced the ex­ec­u­tive’s sup­port for the work of of­fi­cers, as he sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic that pa­trol of­fi­cers are up to the task of pro­tect­ing and serv­ing the pub­lic.

The 35 of­fi­cers were se­lect­ed from the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, East­ern Di­vi­sion, South­ern Di­vi­sion and the E999 ERP Com­mand Cen­tre.