One week af­ter the po­lice shift­ed gears to high alert, promis­ing an in­creased pres­ence on the grounds, pa­trols, and spot checks as part of their re­sponse to the blood­shed, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin says the ex­er­cis­es have been bear­ing fruit.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing host­ed by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven and ev­i­dence-based so­lu­tions have been shap­ing suc­cess­ful strate­gies.

“From the pe­ri­od Ju­ly 14 to Ju­ly 21, we have had at least 569 ex­er­cis­es. We had at least 263 per­sons ar­rest­ed, and 15 firearms were seized. Of these 15, at least three of them are what are known as AR-15s or au­to­mat­ic ri­fles. We had at least 604 rounds al­so seized.”

DCP Ben­jamin said a quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics have al­so been seized as a re­sult of the in­creased po­lice ex­er­cis­es.

On Ju­ly 15, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, chaired by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, con­vened a meet­ing fol­low­ing a week­end where the coun­try record­ed over 15 mur­ders. The use of il­le­gal high-pow­ered as­sault weapons was one of the con­cerns raised by Dr Row­ley at the meet­ing.

Dur­ing the talks held with the coun­try’s heads of se­cu­ri­ty, Dr Row­ley al­so high­light­ed the need for “a more proac­tive, in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven, tar­get­ed, and ro­bust ap­proach that is fo­cused on those who are known and sus­pect­ed to be in­volved in se­ri­ous crim­i­nal­i­ty.”

Ben­jamin fired back yes­ter­day at ques­tions raised over the “in your face” polic­ing adopt­ed by the TTPS, main­tain­ing that the ap­proach is not aimed at pun­ish­ing the pub­lic.

“We are look­ing at tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions to deal with the crime sit­u­a­tion. On the 18th of Ju­ly and all the way to the 19th, which is when most peo­ple got up and saw the po­lice on the road, We can ac­count for at least 148 ex­er­cis­es, of which 113 per­sons were ar­rest­ed, sev­en firearms were found, and al­so 387 rounds were seized.

“We had at least 1,358 stops and search­es and at least 464 fixed penal­ty no­tices is­sued on that par­tic­u­lar day. On that day, near­ly 35-46 per cent of the ac­tiv­i­ties that took place were be­cause the po­lice came to­geth­er as one.”

Min­is­ter Hinds said the leg­is­la­tion has al­so been bol­ster­ing ef­forts at “peg­ging back crime.” So far for the year, he said, 14 peo­ple have been charged un­der the an­ti-gang law. He was pleased to see “in­creased po­lice an­ti-gang ac­tiv­i­ty, which is at the heart of the ma­jor­i­ty of the mur­ders we ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Hinds al­so clar­i­fied that road­blocks were not the sole strat­e­gy used by po­lice in the an­ti-crime ex­er­cise. He praised the ef­forts of the of­fi­cers.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira urged the po­lice to keep transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime on their radar as they move for­ward.

Figueira said an analy­sis of mur­ders in the last sev­er­al years points to an evo­lu­tion of il­lic­it weapons and drug trades with­in the coun­try.