Fol­low­ing is a press re­lease Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Gary Grif­fith is­sued yes­ter­day in re­sponse to what he called an alarm­ing in­crease in ve­hic­u­lar and pedes­tri­an traf­fic over the last three days de­spite the Stay-at-Home mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed to pre­vent the spread of COVID-19:

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith has not­ed the in­creas­ing num­ber of ve­hic­u­lar and pedes­tri­an traf­fic in var­i­ous lo­ca­tions through­out the coun­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly over the last few days, de­spite the calls for cit­i­zens to stay at home in light of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The CoP says that whilst he ap­pre­ci­ates the many var­ied cir­cum­stances that may present them­selves, the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is re­mind­ed that the re­spec­tive Pub­lic Health and Safe­ty reg­u­la­tions are still in place, and have not been ad­just­ed.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith states, “I ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate these cir­cum­stances are chal­leng­ing for every­one, how­ev­er, it is im­por­tant for the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to re­mem­ber this is sim­ply about mit­i­gat­ing a po­ten­tial life or death sce­nario. The na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has re­spond­ed gen­er­al­ly quite well, thus far, let us not drop the ball now.”

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith ad­vis­es that he has had to treat with a num­ber of ex­ten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances, many times re­sult­ing in ex­tend­ing the re­sources of the TTPS.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith trav­elled as far as Ch­agua­nas to­day (yes­ter­day) and no­ticed the thou­sands of ve­hi­cles on the na­tion’s high­ways, as po­lice con­duct­ed road checks across the coun­try.

The CoP says many non-es­sen­tial work­ers were caught up dur­ing the road checks, pre­vent­ing the es­sen­tial work­ers from reach­ing their places of em­ploy­ment on time. He says peo­ple may be heav­i­ly in­con­ve­nienced for hours dur­ing these road checks.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are asked to like and fol­low the TTPS via our Face­book and Twit­ter pages for the lat­est news and in­for­ma­tion on mat­ters of in­ter­est to the gen­er­al pub­lic.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith says these road checks will con­tin­ue as po­lice step up to en­sure that the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance guide­lines are ad­hered to. The CoP re­minds that the TTPS will con­tin­ue to play its role in keep­ing cit­i­zens safe and se­cure, by en­sur­ing there is so­cial dis­tanc­ing and no gath­er­ing of per­sons in groups of more than five.

The TTPS, he adds, con­tin­ues to en­sure there are no COVID-19 par­ties, non-es­sen­tial busi­ness­es must re­main close, and that cit­i­zens re­main at home if there is no need to be out­side. These are not nor­mal times and peo­ple need to stay at home and avoid the chance of con­tract­ing this dis­ease.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith is again urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic that if there see breach­es of the reg­u­la­tions, to in­form the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties by con­tact­ing 555, or by send­ing mes­sages, pho­tographs or videos to 482-GARY, or the TTPS App.