Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith says his of­fi­cers made the right de­ci­sion to in­ter­vene and shut down a food ham­per dri­ve at the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty in Port-of-Spain on Friday.

“I don’t think any­one could ques­tion the ac­tions of the TTPS,” Grif­fith said.

Of­fi­cers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch and the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion had to force hun­dreds of needy peo­ple to so­cial dis­tance as close to 1,500 peo­ple gath­ered out­side the Fred­er­ick Street build­ing in the hope of re­ceiv­ing a ham­per to take them through the COVID-19 Stay-at-Home pe­ri­od.

But ac­cord­ing to Grif­fith, more peo­ple showed up than the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty ex­pect­ed and the of­fi­cers had no choice but the shut the ac­tiv­i­ty down to pro­tect against the spread of the virus.

“The Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty were very pleased (with the po­lice’s de­ci­sion). It’s no fault of theirs,” he con­tin­ued.

Grif­fith said Liv­ing Wa­ter will now meet with the TTPS to as­cer­tain when next the dri­ve can con­tin­ue and the pub­lic will be in­formed. He said the next time, guide­lines and prop­er mark­ers for so­cial dis­tanc­ing will be pro­vid­ed along with the pres­ence of the TTPS.

He urged NGOs, or­gan­i­sa­tions or any­one in­tend­ing to stage such dri­ves to col­lab­o­rate with the po­lice in fu­ture.

Com­ment­ing in the sit­u­a­tion, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don said what hap­pened out­side Liv­ing Wa­ter oc­curred be­cause many peo­ple have not had an in­come for three or four weeks due to lock­downs be­cause of COVID-19.

“There were so many peo­ple there it’s un­be­liev­able. There are a lot of peo­ple in our coun­try that are plunged in­to need, re­al se­ri­ous need,” Arch­bish­op Gor­don said.

Gor­don said, how­ev­er, that there will be a ramp-up in help and de­liv­ery so peo­ple won’t be con­gre­gat­ing in one place, as there are many more cen­tres like Liv­ing Wa­ter where dis­tri­b­u­tion will take place. He said parish­es across the coun­try had al­ready start­ed such do­na­tions.

Gor­don said Liv­ing Wa­ter was al­ways con­sis­tent and on the front­line of help­ing the poor. He said what hap­pened yes­ter­day was a tes­ti­mo­ny of the fate peo­ple have in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“The po­lice in­ter­ven­tion was nec­es­sary and ad­e­quate,” he said.

Grif­fith agreed mem­bers of Liv­ing Wa­ter need­ed po­lice as­sis­tance.

Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty di­rec­tor Rhon­da Main­got had told Guardian Me­dia there was a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion ear­li­er this week where they had to turn away ap­prox­i­mate­ly 350 peo­ple who turned up for help.

“It was very painful for us not to be able to sup­ply the needs of those re­al­ly in need,” she said.

Main­got said there were peo­ple in the line who were pushed to pover­ty be­cause of the COVID lock­down and many were men.

On Thurs­day, the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board do­nat­ed $150,000 to Liv­ing Wa­ter to as­sist them in their COVID sup­port dri­ve.

This was not the first time the po­lice was forced to stop such an ac­tiv­i­ty since COVID-19 lock­downs be­gan on March 30. On April 17, of­fi­cers had to dis­perse large crowds gath­ered out­side Barakah Grounds in Ch­agua­nas, where peo­ple had gath­ered for ham­pers from well-known me­dia own­er In­shan Ish­mael.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said Fri­day that Gov­ern­ment had be­gun dis­trib­ut­ing COVID-19 dis­burse­ments to re­li­gious bod­ies, adding 290 cheques had al­ready been print­ed.

She said the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter had made con­tact with re­li­gious bod­ies to get the process done quick­ly.

Robin­son-Reg­is com­mend­ed the ef­forts of the Liv­ing Wa­ter and said the grant will en­hance their ef­forts. She al­so com­mend­ed the Po­lice Ser­vice for their in­ter­ven­tion at the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day.

Arch­bish­op Gor­don said the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty will re­ceive part of the fund­ing from the Gov­ern­ment. He said the mon­ey will come through church and be dis­trib­uted to all mem­bers or branch­es of the church.

“We have one net­work where we are shar­ing and pool­ing re­sources,” Gor­don said.