RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A spike in gun vi­o­lence in Siparia has prompt­ed more than sev­en com­mu­ni­ty groups to join forces with the po­lice in a peace walk through the com­mu­ni­ty, with po­lice de­clar­ing Siparia and sur­round­ing ar­eas a “no crime zone”.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les joined res­i­dents, re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, cul­tur­al groups and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers for the can­dle­light vig­il and peace walk, which be­gan at the Siparia Del­tons Steel Or­ches­tra pa­n­yard on Fri­day night.

The ini­tia­tive came weeks af­ter the Ju­ly 18 mur­ders of Kwame Par­ris, 29, alias “Six” of Co­conut Al­ley, Siparia, and Teshawn Bap­tiste, 25, of Lowkie Trace, Pe­nal and the Ju­ly 16 mur­der of Akiel Pack­ette, 40, who was shot dead on Quinam Road, Siparia, in what po­lice de­scribed as an in­crease in lo­cal gang- and drug-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence across the Siparia dis­trict over the past few weeks.

Ad­dress­ing par­tic­i­pants be­fore the walk, ASP Joel Forbes of the TTPS South West­ern Di­vi­sion urged res­i­dents to take a stand against crime.

“Sen­non Vil­lage and en­vi­rons is a no-crime zone,” Forbes de­clared.

He said the po­lice were work­ing with res­i­dents and had put re­sources in­to the area to pre­vent fur­ther crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“I want per­sons to pledge that from tonight go­ing for­ward there will be no vi­o­lence,” Forbes said.

He said the turnout showed that res­i­dents did not want vi­o­lence to be­come nor­mal in their com­mu­ni­ty.

“I sense the love in this com­mu­ni­ty and I don’t want any­thing neg­a­tive to take hold in this space,” Forbes said.

Forbes said res­i­dents al­so had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to help pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty by li­ais­ing with the po­lice.

Or­gan­is­er Christo­pher Hen­ry of the Sen­non Vil­lage Move­ment said the peace walk brought to­geth­er mem­bers of the Siparia En­vi­ro­fest Com­mit­tee, Siparia Open Bible Church, Siparia Ro­man Catholic Church, Front­line Drum­mers, Sen­non Vil­lage Move­ment, Quinam Vil­lage Coun­cil, Siparia Del­tons Steel Or­ches­tra, Fire Na­tion In­ter­na­tion­al Rhythm Em­pire, Los Ba­jos Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee, CORE Foun­da­tion, Hunters Search and Res­cue led by Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat, Di­a­ton­ic Steel In­sti­tu­tion and mem­bers of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Beck­les said she at­tend­ed the event af­ter be­ing in­vit­ed by Siparia coun­cil­lor An­ton George and was there to sup­port res­i­dents and fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by crime.

“I was here in June when we had the killing of Mer­cedez,” she said, ref­er­enc­ing 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, a 12-year-old girl who was killed af­ter board­ing a PH-taxi in Los Iros.

She said com­mu­ni­ties were not feel­ing safer de­spite Gov­ern­ment mea­sures to tack­le crime.

“The fact is if you ask the av­er­age Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zen whether they ac­tu­al­ly feel safer, the fact is that peo­ple are say­ing that they don’t feel safer,” Beck­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said peace walks could help strength­en com­mu­ni­ties by bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er.

“At the end of the day, to deal with crime, we still have to be our broth­er’s keep­er.”

Se­nior Pas­tor of St Mary’s Open Bible Church, Mark David, de­scribed the peace walk as a “tremen­dous ini­tia­tive”.

David said the coun­try al­so need­ed to ad­dress di­vi­sions with­in so­ci­ety.

Al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts said the ini­tia­tive was not po­lit­i­cal but was in­tend­ed to show that res­i­dents were unit­ed in re­ject­ing crime.

“The crime sit­u­a­tion is to­tal­ly out of con­trol, and there­fore we are do­ing our part as cit­i­zens in the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly those of us who live down here, to al­low our pres­ence to be felt, to say no to what is hap­pen­ing,” Roberts said.

He said while the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to in­crease po­lice pres­ence were wel­comed, build­ing po­lice posts alone would not solve the coun­try’s crime prob­lem.

“We need to get back to the root cause of crime,” he said. “We need to get back to the homes. We need to get back in­to the com­mu­ni­ties to deal with the is­sue.”