Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher is look­ing for­ward to “sig­nif­i­cant re­sults” from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force in pa­trolling the coun­try dur­ing the Christ­mas and Car­ni­val 2024 pe­ri­ods.

In a voice mes­sage sent to Guardian Me­dia af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s procla­ma­tion yes­ter­day call­ing out 100 De­fence Force re­serve of­fi­cers, the CoP said the in­ten­tion was “to sus­tain our re­lent­less pur­suit of the crim­i­nal el­e­ment dur­ing this pe­ri­od as we seek to en­sure the safe­ty of all our cit­i­zens”.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher, wel­com­ing the joint army po­lice pa­trol ini­tia­tive, said both en­ti­ties had a his­to­ry of col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“The TTPS wel­comes the ini­tia­tive pro­vid­ed for in the le­gal no­tice is­sued by her Ex­cel­len­cy for the ad­di­tion­al man­pow­er to sup­ple­ment the of­fi­cers of the TTPS as we in­ten­si­fy our op­er­a­tions in prepa­ra­tion for the crit­i­cal pe­ri­od of Christ­mas in­to Car­ni­val.”

She said they will con­tin­ue to es­tab­lish strate­gic al­liances with our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies “to en­hance our in­tel­li­gence and crime-fight­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties and we look for­ward to achiev­ing sig­nif­i­cant re­sults as we do so”.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and chief of de­fence staff Brigadier Gen­er­al Carl­ton Al­fon­so called the strat­e­gy “a step in the right di­rec­tion”.

“Re­mem­ber the De­fence Force and par­tic­u­lar­ly the reg­i­ment are deemed aide to the civ­il pow­er, and, of course, the civ­il pow­er is the TTPS. So, we will as­sist them, we should as­sist them, we have to as­sist them in this case,” Al­fon­so said.

He sought to as­sure the pub­lic that they need not fear the sol­diers.

“It all de­pends on your train­ing and men­tal­i­ty, we are not trained to mis­be­have, sol­diers are not trained to treat civil­ians with dis­cour­tesy or scorn,” Al­fon­so added.

‘We want all hands on deck’

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion al­so wel­comed the part­ner­ship. Its pres­i­dent, In­spec­tor Gideon Dick­son how­ev­er, called for all hands on deck.

“Of­ten­times you’ll wit­ness the po­lice op­er­at­ing and you will think it is on­ly the po­lice re­spon­si­ble for man­ag­ing crime, but we have an en­tire law en­force­ment body. I know any as­sis­tance is wel­comed for us to stymie what is oc­cur­ring in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the da­ta will sug­gest the last quar­ter of the year in­to the start of the new year, we are most pressed for blue-col­lar crime par­tic­u­lar­ly mur­ders, so we see it as a pos­i­tive strat­e­gy,” Dick­son said.

Dick­son re­mind­ed the pub­lic that this joint pa­trol mod­el al­ready ex­ists in Laven­tille and they need not wor­ry about ex­ces­sive ag­gres­sion from the sol­diers.

“The De­fence Force pro­vides sup­port for the TTPS. Most of the pub­lic en­gage­ment will be done by the po­lice per say but per­sons, based on per­cep­tion and be­lief, see­ing armed forces to­geth­er, tends to have a more am­pli­fy­ing ef­fect on those you want to de­ter from crime as op­posed to any oth­er thing,” Dick­son ex­plained.

In re­sponse to the Prime Min­is­ter’s promise on Tues­day that the State will “re­dou­ble all ef­forts to cur­tail these vi­o­lent out­bursts”, Dick­son said the state­ment could not be di­rect­ed to the TTPS alone.

“The record will show that we con­tin­ue to give, the record will show that we’re re­lent­less in giv­ing. What wasn’t hap­pen­ing was that while we have been giv­ing, we have oth­ers who would have been lan­guish­ing and they are be­ing paid a salary to do x, y and z and there has been no call from so­ci­ety for them to do more.

“So, the TTPS con­tin­ues to put out strate­gic goals and tar­gets and are at­tempt­ing to achieve them. What we are not see­ing are the oth­er en­ti­ties hav­ing a sim­i­lar laser fo­cus to achieve their tar­gets.

“And when we don’t op­er­ate on the same page then peo­ple look for scape­goats and the eas­i­est thing to do is to point at the po­lice to say they aren’t do­ing what they are sup­posed to do. And it is now a clar­i­on call for all to come out from your si­los,” Dick­son said.

“We want more from our cus­toms, we want more from our coast guard, we want more from our de­fence per­son­nel, from our pris­ons, from our teach­ers, leg­is­la­tors, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, in­clu­sive of im­mi­gra­tion and we want more from our cit­i­zens too.”