An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Two high-rank­ing of­fi­cers of the TTPS and the De­fence Force, along with Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land, met busi­ness­men and cit­i­zens dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, as they launched the Joint Task Force One op­er­a­tions.

The ini­tia­tive, which takes place in five polic­ing di­vi­sions, is meant to in­crease the pres­ence of law en­force­ment in a bid to re­gain pub­lic trust and re­store a sense of safe­ty.

In rolling out the plan in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion as they greet­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic in the cap­i­tal city, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, ac­com­pa­nied by TTDF, Op­er­a­tions, Ma­jor Steve Ben­ny, ex­plained the in­ten­tion be­hind it.

“This is a spe­cial op­er­a­tion where we are seek­ing to in­crease the pres­ence of both po­lice of­fi­cers and the De­fence Force, so that per­sons can feel free, in not just the cap­i­tal, but in at least five di­vi­sions,” Ben­jamin said.

Be­sides the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, the plan was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in­tro­duced in the West­ern, East­ern, Cen­tral and South­ern Di­vi­sions.

Ben­jamin ad­vised the pub­lic, “As you con­tin­ue to tra­verse the streets, you are go­ing to see more pres­ence of these joint op­er­a­tions.”

Ex­plain­ing the ra­tio­nale be­hind this lat­est thrust to fight crime, Ben­jamin said they firm­ly be­lieve the way to re­gain pub­lic con­fi­dence and earn back their trust was for cit­i­zens to see and hear from of­fi­cers.

Speak­ing with busi­ness op­er­a­tors along Fred­er­ick Street, at Mode Alive, Rat­tan’s Free­zone and Miguel Moses, Ben­jamin and Ben­ny lis­tened to con­cerns, which in­clud­ed lar­ce­ny and snatch and grab rob­beries.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters lat­er dur­ing the walk­a­bout in the city, both se­nior law­men as­sured, “The cap­i­tal is safe. It will al­ways be safe. We are not go­ing to al­low any­one to run T&T.

“We want to find out what are the chal­lenges and to see what needs to be done to en­sure a safer and bet­ter T&T.”

Ben­jamin said they were al­so seek­ing to pro­vide qual­i­ty ser­vice by di­rect­ly ad­dress­ing and re­duc­ing the fear of crime, which could on­ly be done via phys­i­cal in­ter­ac­tion and di­a­logue.

“We need to re­duce the fear of crime by re­al­ly start­ing to treat the pub­lic with that lev­el of re­spect and dig­ni­ty that they so de­serve,” he said.

Asked about his com­ment ear­li­er this month that crime was not out of con­trol, DCP Ben­jamin said, “The re­al­i­ty is the crime we are see­ing tak­ing place, the brazen­ness ... peo­ple might find them­selves in a place where men­tal­ly, they can feel like it is not un­der con­trol.

“Nev­er­the­less, the rea­son why we are putting these strate­gies out there and the rea­son why we are here, that you can see as the DCP, I am not sit­ting down in my seat, is be­cause it calls for every­body to be on board.

“This is where we want all hands on deck ... as se­nior of­fi­cers we are lead­ing by ex­am­ple to come out, meet­ing with the peo­ple and re­al­ly do­ing some­thing about the crime sit­u­a­tion.”

Ben­ny said the TTDF was com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the TTPS, as past ini­tia­tives had proven to work well.

Join­ing Ben­jamin and Ben­ny on the walk­a­bout, Scot­land, the MP for Port-of-Spain South, de­scribed the task ahead as a “mam­moth” one but ex­pressed con­fi­dence the TTPS and the TTDF could get it done.

He promised this was not an iso­lat­ed ef­fort and would be seen through­out T&T.

“Hope­ful­ly, we will see the fruits of our labour,” Scot­land said.