KEVON FELMINE and

KELLYANN LEMESSY

With a Ma­yaro fam­i­ly still shak­en af­ter armed crim­i­nals in po­lice and army uni­forms vi­o­lent­ly robbed them at their home ear­li­er this week, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray said yes­ter­day that there is an ur­gent need for ad­di­tion­al re­sources to en­sure safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty in south-east­ern com­mu­ni­ties.

The 37-year-old sus­pect held for the rob­bery, a Reg­i­ment pri­vate at­tached to the Cu­mu­to base who was as­signed to the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion for joint pa­trol du­ty, re­mained in cus­tody yes­ter­day and is await­ing an in­ter­view from the in­ves­ti­gat­ing team led by ASP Jan­kee, In­sp Ma­habir and Sgt Mo­hammed.

The pri­vate was on tem­po­rary du­ty at the Ma­yaro sta­tion. His ar­rest came af­ter one of his al­leged vic­tims went to the sta­tion to give a state­ment and saw him there in his army uni­form.

Ma­yaro po­lice do not be­lieve the ban­dits in po­lice tac­ti­cal wear were of­fi­cers but crim­i­nals who got their hands on uni­forms.

The fam­i­ly re­fused to speak to the me­dia about their or­deal yes­ter­day, say­ing they had been no­ti­fied by the po­lice not to di­vulge any in­for­ma­tion on what tran­spired to the me­dia.

In a me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Paray said an uptick in home in­va­sions, rob­beries and as­saults in­di­cate a wor­ry­ing es­ca­la­tion in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in Ma­yaro and near­by com­mu­ni­ties.

He said re­gions once known for their tran­quil­li­ty are now ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­creased threats from armed crim­i­nals, pos­ing risks to all res­i­dents, in­clud­ing vul­ner­a­ble groups like the el­der­ly, women and chil­dren. He said there had been a no­tice­able and alarm­ing in­crease in the crime rate over the past few months.

He said he be­lieves more of­fi­cers, ve­hi­cles and CCTV cam­eras will aid in more ef­fec­tive pa­trolling and quick­er re­spons­es. He al­so wants po­lice posts along the east­ern coast and spe­cif­ic dis­tricts.

“The laid-back and hos­pitable na­ture of the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, tra­di­tion­al­ly a point of pride, may in­ad­ver­tent­ly make these ar­eas more sus­cep­ti­ble to crim­i­nal el­e­ments. This rise in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties is rapid­ly trans­form­ing Ma­yaro in­to a re­gion of con­cern, im­pact­ing both its res­i­dents and rep­u­ta­tion as a wel­com­ing des­ti­na­tion for tourists, both do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al,” Paray said.

He thanked the Ma­yaro po­lice for their on­go­ing ef­forts and called on au­thor­i­ties to in­ten­si­fy law en­force­ment ini­tia­tives to pro­tect the peo­ple, busi­ness own­ers and vis­i­tors.

While Paray sees an uptick in crime, sta­tis­tics from the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis unit of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice show there were 108 se­ri­ous crimes, like mur­ders, shoot­ings, wound­ings, sex­u­al of­fences and rob­beries, in the Ma­yaro dis­trict up to Tues­day. It is a re­duc­tion from the 149 re­port­ed for the same pe­ri­od last year. There is an 81 per cent de­tec­tion rate for se­ri­ous crime in Ma­yaro and 60 per cent for the East­ern Di­vi­sion. There was al­so a re­duc­tion in prop­er­ty crimes like rob­beries, break-ins and bur­glar­ies.

Snr Supt Ryan Khan yes­ter­day said Ma­yaro faces chal­lenges like every oth­er com­mu­ni­ty with a grow­ing pop­u­la­tion and chang­ing dy­nam­ics. Khan said the po­lice are al­so adapt­ing and im­prov­ing an­ti-crime mea­sures.

“Yes, there are chal­lenges in every com­mu­ni­ty at this time. We have ded­i­cat­ed po­lice of­fi­cers in Ma­yaro who want to see the dis­trict safer and have a bet­ter qual­i­ty for all cit­i­zens of Ma­yaro and, by ex­ten­sion, the East­ern Di­vi­sion. We work close­ly with com­mu­ni­ties,” Khan said.

A po­lice re­port stat­ed that the fam­i­ly, who owns a hard­ware, was at home in Mafek­ing Vil­lage at 4.55 pm on Mon­day when a black SUV with blue swiv­el lights pulled up.

Six men, one in plain clothes, two in po­lice tac­ti­cal wear and three in army uni­forms, got out of the SUV. Two had firearms. The men ap­proached the house and told the 47-year-old home­own­er that they were in­ves­ti­gat­ing a re­port of a house fire and had come for sur­veil­lance footage. The home­own­er al­lowed the men in­side, where his wife, 44, and son, 23, were. How­ev­er, the men then an­nounced a rob­bery and bound the fam­i­ly’s hands and feet be­fore rob­bing them of gold jew­ellery, cash, mo­bile phones and their Dig­i­tal Video Recorder. The men left in the SUV.

As the fam­i­ly was at the Ma­yaro sta­tion to give a state­ment, one of the vic­tims saw the pri­vate. He told the in­ves­ti­ga­tor, who then ques­tioned and de­tained the sol­dier.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are still search­ing for the oth­ers in­volved.

Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Di­rec­tor David West yes­ter­day said there will be an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged in­volve­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers. West said the PCA will in­ter­view civil­ians and ob­tain copies of po­lice re­ports.

“The PCA has ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ar­ti­cles in the Trinidad Guardian and News­day con­cern­ing the sol­dier iden­ti­fied as re­port­ed for joint pa­trols at the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion,” West said.