The T&T Police Service Social and Welfare Association has thrown its support behind the Government’s plan to make Tobago a hard target against criminal elements on the island.
Claiming the rapid escalation of murders to 15 in the first half of the year was indeed alarming, the association’s head, ASP Gideon Dickson said the trend of mass shootings in Tobago did not start with Monday’s quadruple murder in Black Rock.
Speaking on CNC 3’s Morning Brew yesterday, he claimed officers from the Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) and the Guard and Emergency Branch (GEB) had been redeployed to Tobago since May to provide a layer of support to their colleagues in Tobago.
Calling for this to continue over the next couple of months, Dickson described the announcement by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary Farley Augustine on Tuesday that a new crime plan was coming to deal with the upsurge in murders and shootings in Tobago as a positive one.
Former police commissioner Gary Griffith, however, warned the redeployment exercise could become a “massive logistics nightmare” as it entailed uprooting officers whose lives were based in Trinidad.
He explained that with their spouses and children working and going to school in Trinidad, along with monthly financial commitments—many officers might not be as receptive to being transferred.
Griffith, however, agreed with Rowley’s assessment that with 90 per cent of the police officers on the island being locals—the issue of familiarity could affect their ability to properly and impartially dispense justice.
A former senior TTPS official claimed the increase in shootings and murders was being fuelled by an escalation of the drug war and a fight for turf.
Commending the call by the association for increased scanners and greater use of sniffer dogs at both the air and sea ports in Tobago, the senior official said the authorities needed to pay more attention to the arrival of persons via luxury yachts, speed boats and fishing pirogues which he claimed, were all being used to import illegal arms, ammunition and narcotics.
Dickson said while increased security measures for persons arriving on the island would be an inconvenience, it would be a deterrent to criminals who were getting in and out of Tobago easily.
He said the T&T Police Service Social and Welfare Association was in support of the move by the authorities to harden Tobago as a target.
On the issue of body cameras for lawmen, he said while it was international best practice, T&T was a developing country and had to be careful with the desire to always try to achieve best practice.
He elaborated, “It is best practice which saw us take away corporal punishment in schools and we have seen the degeneration of more than one generation as lawlessness is now the order of the day.”