SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Mo­bile Po­lice Posts would great­ly as­sist the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion in curb­ing crime.

This point was stat­ed by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Ramjohn when he field­ed ques­tions from the res­i­dents of Freeport on Wednes­day night, at a po­lice town meet­ing at the Three Roads Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

Snr Supt Ramjohn said there has been a 22 per­cent re­duc­tion in crime, not­ing that the tar­get was 23 per­cent. He said a mo­bile post would al­low po­lice to use da­ta to get crim­i­nals out of trou­bled ar­eas.

He said, “I would like the ini­tia­tive of a mo­bile post so we can move around in the di­vi­sion be­cause we are not care­tak­ers of Freeport alone.”

Ramjohn said Cen­tral is ex­pand­ing but the phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture of the ex­ist­ing sta­tions is lim­it­ed when it comes to get­ting the ser­vices out to the rapid­ly ex­pand­ing com­mu­ni­ties in the area.

“We need to get rid of the crim­i­nals here. We need to close down the drug block. We need to get all the crim­i­nals out, we need to help the youths, we need to help the old so they can en­joy their rights and their lib­er­ty,” he said.

Snr Supt Ramjohn ad­vised vil­lagers to ap­ply for their firearms users’ li­cens­es.

He al­so not­ed that per­sons would be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in a jus­tice clin­ic. He said this clin­ic would ad­vise res­i­dents the ex­tent of the law they can go to when de­fend­ing their homes and prop­er­ty.

Caroni Central MP Arnold Ram during the question-and-answer session of the Police Town Hall Meeting with residents of Freeport, at the Three Roads Community Centre, on Wednesday, May 17, 2023. (Image by Shastri Boodan)

Ca­roni Cen­tral MP Arnold Ram said high­er vis­i­bil­i­ty of po­lice is need­ed. MP Ram said MPs were told in the Par­lia­ment that on­ly 700 cam­eras were work­ing out of a to­tal of 2,100 in­stalled cam­eras.

The Ca­roni Cen­tral MP said res­i­dents have com­plained about the mis­trust and at­ti­tude of the po­lice.

“We have seen this week a po­lice of­fi­cer break­ing the lights [re­fer­ring to the traf­fic lights] to go and get gy­ros on the av­enue,” he said. “We have al­so seen the is­sue of the Brent Thomas ab­duc­tion where po­lice of­fi­cers would have bro­ken all the rules to abduct a na­tion­al.”

MP Ram said peo­ple are treat­ed like crim­i­nals at the po­lice sta­tion and not­ed that there is no park­ing avail­able at the Freeport Sta­tion.

He added, “The po­lice ser­vice and the po­lice of­fi­cers are not wel­com­ing to the gen­er­al pub­lic for us who are will­ing to share in­for­ma­tion and if we do not feel wel­comed, why would we vis­it the po­lice sta­tion to give any in­for­ma­tion we may have?”

Ram al­so called on the po­lice to get se­ri­ous when it comes to deal­ing with noise pol­lu­tion.