The coun­try has seen a 25 per­cent drop in crime this year, with 64 few­er mur­ders oc­cur­ring, when com­pared with trends in 2019.

That as­ser­tion from Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, as he com­mend­ed all po­lice of­fi­cers “for their ex­em­plary and pro­fes­sion­al con­duct dur­ing the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tions”.

“At least 95 per­cent of po­lice of­fi­cers turned out for du­ty at Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion,” Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith re­ports in an of­fi­cial state­ment re­leased to­day by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“That fig­ure could have been high­er, but sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers had test­ed pos­i­tive for the COVID-19 virus, while many oth­ers were in quar­an­tine,” he said.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said po­lice of­fi­cers re­port­ed for du­ty as ear­ly as 2 am on Mon­day and worked un­til every polling sta­tion had com­plet­ed the count­ing of votes. He said apart from the Elec­tion Day du­ty, of­fi­cers of the TTPS al­so had to car­ry out their dai­ly rou­tine of polic­ing and en­sur­ing the coun­try was safe.

“From all re­ports I’ve re­ceived, the of­fi­cers of the TTPS were very pro­fes­sion­al, en­sur­ing that all the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance guide­lines were en­forced at polling sta­tions,” he said.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith stat­ed that the TTPS has been func­tion­ing non-stop over the last nine months, mov­ing from the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions on De­cem­ber 2, to Christ­mas, to Car­ni­val and to the COVID-19 lock­down which start­ed in March 2020.

He said his of­fi­cers were work­ing to­wards re­duc­ing the crime rate in the coun­try and have in­cor­po­rat­ed new tech­nol­o­gy to sup­port that ef­fort.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said as of to­day’s date, there were 64 few­er mur­ders than the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year, while over­all crime had dropped by 25 per­cent.