Shas­tri Boodan

The TT Po­lice Ser­vice seems to be in­ca­pable of han­dling crime, ac­cord­ing to re­tired Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent John­ny Abra­ham who lament­ed that crim­i­nals and gangs are run­ning T&T.

He was at the time speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day at a crime aware­ness sem­i­nar host­ed by Ryan Ram­per­sad, Chair­man of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC.

Abra­ham said the lead­er­ship with­in the po­lice ser­vice is not what it should be.

He said, "Every­thing in a to­tal mess and chaos, like no­body in au­thor­i­ty, where the po­lice ser­vice is con­cerned, could han­dle the sit­u­a­tion and we have to make a step for­ward to bring back peace in this coun­try. Right now, the gangs run­ning this coun­try. Po­lice of­fi­cers are afraid to go out, they don't have the sup­port of the se­nior of­fi­cers.

Most of the se­nior of­fi­cers not knowl­edge­able about what to do, how to do and when to do it. They don't lead from the front and when you have a leader from the front you must have fol­low­ers."

Abra­ham said al­though he is re­tired he is glad to as­sist.

Chair­man Ram­per­sad said Or­ange Field Hin­du School, Wa­ter­loo Hin­du School, Cara­pichaima RC School and the Tem­ple in the Sea are three in­sti­tu­tions which fell prey to crim­i­nals. Ram­per­sad said apart from mak­ing calls to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to do their work, he cre­at­ed an elite team with decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the po­lice ser­vice.

"We have tak­en a proac­tive ap­proach and we would be walk­ing through the schools that were robbed last week, we are go­ing to look at their lay­out, de­sign and in­fra­struc­ture and these good­ly of­fi­cers are go­ing to make rec­om­men­da­tions to the prin­ci­pals and the var­i­ous de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards as to what changes they can make," he said.