De­spite the fear and con­cern from the pub­lic over the ris­ing mur­der toll, the Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tors, Curt Si­mon, says the po­lice are pre­pared and ca­pa­ble of tack­ling crime.

Six mur­ders be­tween Wednes­day evening and noon on Thurs­day took the mur­der toll to 402.

In Thurs­day’s in­ci­dent, Em­manuel Parks, of Mor­vant, was shot near Simp­son’s Fu­ner­al Home in Laven­tille.

Po­lice said Parks was at a me­chan­ic’s shop on East­ern Main Road, Suc­cess Vil­lage, when gun­men ac­cost­ed and shot him sev­er­al times. The gun­men then got in­to a Nis­san Ti­i­da and drove away.

Si­mon said while he un­der­stood the alarm from the pub­lic, there was still hope, not­ing that the po­lice had made progress in sev­er­al ar­rests and seizures of guns.

He said, “The TTPS, your TTPS, is not asleep. We are up and we are about, we have ex­er­cis­es 24/7, our in­tel­li­gence and in­ves­ti­ga­tion arms are op­er­at­ing. We are do­ing a num­ber of things to push back this dark time with the things we are putting in­to place. We have sched­uled meet­ings with dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers, so the pub­lic can have a greater say to of­fer sug­ges­tions or thoughts on how they would like to be po­liced.”

Re­fer­ring to the ar­rest of two peo­ple in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion for de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace, Si­mon said fur­ther en­quiries led to a widen­ing of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He not­ed such de­vel­op­ments were en­cour­ag­ing, as of­fi­cers were com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the safe­ty of the pub­lic.

“We learned this group was in fact as­so­ci­at­ed with oth­er groups. So, yes there is the gang prob­lem, there is the is­sue where peo­ple, as they say, are try­ing to ‘eat ah food’ and they are prey­ing on the un­sus­pect­ing pub­lic and each oth­er,” he said.

“De­spite the mur­ders, we are see­ing some sig­nif­i­cant push back as far as the TTPS is con­cerned, we have made some sig­nif­i­cant ar­rests, we have made sig­nif­i­cant dis­cov­er­ies of firearms and nar­cotics.”

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions af­ter the week­ly po­lice me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, head of the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Se­nior Supt Bri­an Ram­phall, called on the pub­lic to con­tin­ue part­ner­ing with the po­lice.
He said while the po­lice will con­tin­ue the fight against crime, the pub­lic was al­so a key stake­hold­er in any polic­ing ini­tia­tive.

“Con­tin­ue to as­sist law en­force­ment, as­sist the po­lice with in­ves­ti­ga­tions, if you see some­thing, say some­thing.
“Share in­for­ma­tion and be aware of your sur­round­ings, be alert and be aware of what’s go­ing on around you,” Ram­phall said.

—Re­port­ing by Shane Su­perville