Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Three years af­ter its doors were closed due to de­creas­ing crime in the polic­ing dis­trict, the San Rafael Po­lice Sta­tion was re­opened yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing at the re­open­ing, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin said the sta­tion should be a bea­con of hope and light.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions, he added that the re­open­ing cost around one mil­lion dol­lars, which in­clud­ed two phas­es. The build­ing, which is over 60 years old, was re­fur­bished and com­put­erised, and while he did not ex­pound on it, he said the com­fort of the of­fi­cers was al­so fac­tored in.

He said the clo­sure came be­cause of a lack of man­pow­er at the time and the low crime rates.

“Com­ing out of 2024, we saw an in­crease in crime, and al­so, we’ve lis­tened to the cries of the peo­ple. It is im­por­tant as a po­lice ser­vice to lis­ten to the cries of the peo­ple. In lis­ten­ing to the cries of the peo­ple, it was de­cid­ed un­der for­mer com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to open it, and I en­sured that at least around this time we had the fi­nances to do so, and we did it.”

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the clo­sure of the po­lice sta­tion, no mat­ter the le­git­i­mate rea­son, sent a wrong sig­nal. He im­plored the of­fi­cers us­ing the sta­tion to main­tain it so it wouldn’t have to be closed and re­opened in a few months.

In his first com­ment on the con­clu­sion of the state of emer­gency, Gon­za­les said it was a suc­cess as it al­lowed for a 30 per cent re­duc­tion in mur­ders.

Putting on his po­lit­i­cal hat, Gon­za­les took a jab at for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer Roger Alexan­der, who is the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date for Tu­na­puna.

“A for­mer col­league of yours found him­self on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form and had the worst to say, say­ing you are op­er­at­ing in the 1800s, and I find that to be very dis­hon­ourable.

The same or­gan­i­sa­tion that put food on your ta­ble and gave you an op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve your coun­try; less than one or two days af­ter you de­cide to re­sign from the or­gan­i­sa­tion to pur­sue your po­lit­i­cal agen­da, you are say­ing un­kind words about that or­gan­i­sa­tion. And this morn­ing I am telling you, right here in San Rafael, that he did not de­serve the badge that you be­stowed on him, and he had no right to rise to the rank of se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent.”

He added that based on Alexan­der’s po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, he un­der­stood why per­haps some of the tech­nol­o­gy the po­lice ser­vice had may not have been shared with him, prompt­ing him to com­ment that the po­lice were op­er­at­ing in the 1800s.