Po­lice of­fi­cers con­fronting mem­bers of the pub­lic at road­blocks and dur­ing search­es will no longer be al­lowed to wear bal­a­cla­va masks - masks which cov­er the en­tire head ex­cept for the eyes.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wen­dell Williams at a news con­fer­ence to­day.

The mea­sure is in part meant to en­sure that peo­ple car­ry­ing out po­lice op­er­a­tions can be clear­ly iden­ti­fied as gen­uine po­lice of­fi­cers.

"What was de­cid­ed to­day, any po­lice unit, whether a sin­gle po­lice of­fi­cer or a pa­trol or par­ty of of­fi­cers car­ry­ing out a con­fronta­tion, as of to­day will not be us­ing po­lice bal­a­cla­va, which is that cov­er­ing that cov­ers the head, mouth and nose with just the eyes out," Williams said.

"We have found that in sev­er­al in­stances the per­pe­tra­tors were so cov­ered," he added.

He not­ed that in any case, bal­a­cla­va masks do not af­ford much pro­tec­tion against the COVID-19 virus as op­posed to oth­er prop­er face masks.

He said an­oth­er mea­sure of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion will be that at least one of­fi­cer in the search par­ty will be in grey and blue.

"That will be main­tained as we take steps to bring or­der back in a sit­u­a­tion that is un­com­fort­able for us and I ap­pre­ci­ate how un­com­fort­able it is for the pub­lic," he said.

Williams said in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the use of po­lice out­fits by crim­i­nals have not yet de­ter­mined that ac­tu­al po­lice uni­forms were used.

Po­lice are seek­ing to de­ter­mine if those worn by the crim­i­nals were close or ex­act repli­cas.