An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has agreed to en­sure there are sta­t­ic pa­trols post­ed at 20 pri­ma­ry schools in the Bel­mont and Port-of-Spain dis­tricts, as they move to height­en vis­i­bil­i­ty and re­as­sure staff and pupils that they will be safe while they are en­gaged in the teach­ing and learn­ing process.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPS con­firmed the de­ci­sion had been tak­en in re­sponse to the in­crease in gang vi­o­lence near some schools with­in re­cent days.

Last week, 12-year-old pri­ma­ry school pupil Ezekiel Paria was shot dead as he rode his bike in the Laven­tille area. Po­lice said he was not the in­tend­ed tar­get and was killed by a stray bul­let.

That in­ci­dent came days af­ter a killing oc­curred out­side the Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School, which left both pupils and staff trau­ma­tised.

Yes­ter­day, se­nior of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, led by Snr Supt Har­riper­sad Ram­nar­ine, as well as of­fi­cials from the Com­mu­ni­ty Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Sec­tion, met with prin­ci­pals and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from over 20 pri­ma­ry schools at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Dis­trict Of­fice in Bel­mont.

The po­lice team, which in­clud­ed In­sp Braith­waite, Sgt Par­ris and Cpl Thomas, promised to in­ten­si­fy ef­forts to pro­tect pupils and staff.

The TTPS said, “Dur­ing the dis­cus­sions, the prin­ci­pals ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cerns over the safe­ty of their schools, stu­dents, and staff who must com­mute dai­ly through high-risk ar­eas.”

As­sur­ing the prin­ci­pals that the TTPS would in­ten­si­fy strate­gies to ad­dress the vi­o­lence plagu­ing sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, Ram­nar­ine promised some of the mea­sures would have gone in­to ef­fect from yes­ter­day, while ad­di­tion­al pro­posed mea­sures will be for­ward­ed to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for ap­proval.

He said, “The safe­ty of our schools, staff and stu­dents re­mains the top pri­or­i­ty.”

Ram­nar­ine added, “We are tak­ing swift ac­tion us­ing every re­source avail­able to con­tain the vi­o­lence spilling in­to school zones, to en­sure the safe­ty of our ded­i­cat­ed ed­u­ca­tors and to se­cure the fu­ture for our beloved and vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren.”

At the meet­ing, which was arranged by the min­istry’s HSE co­or­di­na­tor in Port-of-Spain, Wayne Grif­fith, the prin­ci­pals ac­knowl­edged the TTPS’ com­mit­ment to the safe­ty of both pupils and staff in the area. They al­so recog­nised the chal­lenges the po­lice faced in tack­ling this is­sue.

Fol­low-up meet­ings are ex­pect­ed to be held with stake­hold­ers in the com­ing weeks, so more so­lu­tions can be de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed.

Cops out­side Gloster Lodge Pri­ma­ry

Po­lice have promised pa­trols from 7 am-9 am and 2 pm-4 pm dai­ly out­side the Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School, Bel­mont. The pa­trols were ex­pect­ed to be­gin yes­ter­day.

The pa­trols came eight days af­ter Amoa Howe, 50, was shot mul­ti­ple times around 9.10 am on Feb­ru­ary 20, as he walked to his house, which is lo­cat­ed next to the school at Gloster Lodge Road. He died on the spot. Staff and pupils were left trau­ma­tised by the rapid gun­fire, as well as see­ing the body which had lain in the road for hours.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, the school re­mained closed for three days last week, as par­ents/guardians kept their scared chil­dren at home.

Dur­ing a stake­hold­er meet­ing one day af­ter the mur­der, teach­ers called for a vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence dur­ing school hours and oth­er mea­sures. But they were left dis­ap­point­ed up­on re­turn­ing to school on Mon­day, as none of their de­mands were met, which led se­nior school of­fi­cials and the Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion to blast the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry and oth­er of­fi­cials.

How­ev­er, the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) staff rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Mar­isha John, ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment yes­ter­day, as she said there was no po­lice pa­trol up to her de­par­ture from the school at 4.10 pm de­spite the as­sur­ance the pa­trols would have start­ed.

“No po­lice pres­ence was ob­served this af­ter­noon. All my teach­ers are very dis­ap­point­ed by this. We feel ne­glect­ed once again,” John said.

She added, “The teach­ers and par­ents are al­so very an­gry, as we feel that hav­ing this mea­sure (sta­t­ic po­lice pres­ence) in place at this time is the least that should be done by the au­thor­i­ties in re­sponse to our sit­u­a­tion, to give all school per­son­nel a sense of com­fort and se­cu­ri­ty as we are all still very trau­ma­tised.”

While coun­selling and trau­ma in­ter­ven­tion be­gan with staff and pupils at the school on Mon­day—the min­istry has been crit­i­cised, af­ter it was re­vealed that guid­ance of­fi­cers will on­ly re­turn to the school for the next ses­sion on March 11.

TTUTA pres­i­dent mar­tin Lum Kin said the next ses­sion was too far off and ques­tioned how ef­fec­tive this would be.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands teach­ers have been ad­vised to ac­cess the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme in the mean­time.

Lum Kin al­so con­firmed the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny had re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to the re­main­ing re­quests by the teach­ers and that per­son­nel had vis­it­ed the school yes­ter­day to as­sess the premis­es and col­lect mea­sure­ments.

How­ev­er, he said the changes would not be done un­til the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion, which is four months away.