Eliz­abeh Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Earl Elie has warned par­ents that the po­lice will not hes­i­tate to ar­rest any­one, in­clud­ing chil­dren, who are found loi­ter­ing and take them be­fore the courts.

He took the firm stance dur­ing a town hall meet­ing in Black Rock on Thurs­day night.

Res­i­dents com­plained that ex­ces­sive loi­ter­ing by youths, main­ly chil­dren, had left many feel­ing un­safe and im­pris­oned in their own com­mu­ni­ty. 

Re­spond­ing to these con­cerns, Elie as­sured them that such be­hav­iour would not be tol­er­at­ed un­der his watch.

“When the po­lice hold you, you get­ting the full brunt of the law. You could be eight years old, be­cause the law says af­ter sev­en years old you have to an­swer for your crime. You could be sev­en years old and one month, I tak­ing you to the court and no par­ent not com­ing to beg and bawl and cry at that stage.”

Elie fur­ther spoke of an alarm­ing trend where chil­dren were linked to some of To­ba­go’s most se­ri­ous crimes, point­ing out that chil­dren as young as 13 years old are be­ing charged with se­ri­ous of­fences.

“Just last week, we charged two teenagers—16 and 17 years old—and a 13 year old.

“Ba­bies—lit­er­al­ly ba­bies—com­mit­ting crimes in a place like To­ba­go. And you know, the ques­tion must be asked: where are the par­ents? Are the po­lice sup­posed to be moth­er and fa­ther to these chil­dren as well? Is that what is be­ing asked of us?”

Send­ing a mes­sage to par­ents, he chid­ed their par­ent­ing skills and poor judge­ment to de­tect delin­quen­cy. 

Turn­ing his fo­cus to the com­mu­ni­ty, he asked where was the vil­lage to raise the child, say­ing it was not on­ly the job of the po­lice to care for chil­dren. 

“We take blame where it is due. I’m not shy­ing away from the fact that the po­lice ser­vice could do more or that we may have failed you in the past. But par­ents, you must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for your chil­dren. You can’t tell me a 13 year old is bring­ing home stolen items—a tele­vi­sion, a fridge—and you, the par­ent, sit there and do noth­ing. And then you blame the po­lice for chil­dren be­ing on the streets? That’s not ac­cept­able.

“What hap­pened to the idea that it takes a vil­lage to raise a child? Is that phi­los­o­phy out the win­dow? If it is, we need to bring it back. Par­ents, guardians, and the com­mu­ni­ty must step up, or these chil­dren will be led astray by hard­ened crim­i­nals. And once that hap­pens, the dam­age is done.”

Elie lament­ed the state of the is­land, con­trast­ing it with the is­land he knew while grow­ing up. “The To­ba­go I grew up in dur­ing the 80s is a far cry from what I see now. Back then, we were proud of our achieve­ments. To­ba­go pro­duced some of the most in­tel­li­gent peo­ple in the world—peo­ple whose con­tri­bu­tions live on for­ev­er. But now, we are al­low­ing our­selves to be in­flu­enced by neg­a­tiv­i­ty, much of it brought here by out­siders.”