Sascha Wil­son

A po­lice com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive that seeks to re­duce crime, build con­fi­dence and trust in the po­lice and raise a sense of com­mu­ni­ty spir­it was launched in La Ro­maine yes­ter­day.

Dri­ven by First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers, Act­ing Supt Ian Carthy said the ini­tia­tive will be rolled out with­in at-risk com­mu­ni­ties across the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Di­vi­sion.

In an in­ter­view with re­porters at the bas­ket­ball court at Lucky Street, Carthy ex­plained, “What we seek to do with this ini­tia­tive is ad­dress com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns, re­duce the fear of crime and re­store and main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.”

Pri­or to yes­ter­day’s launch, he said the po­lice did a num­ber of walk­a­bouts and meet­ings with res­i­dents in La Ro­maine and oth­er po­lice dis­tricts with­in the San Fer­nan­do po­lice dis­trict to let peo­ple know what the ini­tia­tive is about and get feed­back.

Ex­plain­ing that Op­er­a­tion Im­pact is a mul­ti­fac­eted ini­tia­tive, he said the po­lice will be tar­get­ing vi­o­lent crimes and gang mem­bers, in­creas­ing po­lice pres­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty, host­ing sport­ing events in which the of­fi­cers will be par­tic­i­pat­ing, and even as­sist­ing the res­i­dents in or­gan­is­ing com­mu­ni­ty events such as a La Ro­maine Day, which the res­i­dents have been try­ing to get off the ground for sev­er­al years.

“We are tar­get­ing all the at-risk ar­eas, first­ly in the San Fer­nan­do po­lice di­vi­sion. These at-risk ar­eas have a high in­ci­dence of ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy and so on. We have a num­ber of youths in the La Ro­maine area and in oth­er ar­eas that com­mit crime. They grav­i­tate to­wards these gangs so we are try­ing to at­tack them. We are try­ing to get them on that right path in or­der to keep them away from the gang mem­bers, keep them away from a life of crime in essence,” he added.

Not­ing that there are sev­er­al rea­sons why youths go astray, one of which is a break­down in the fam­i­ly unit, Carthy added, “So what we are look­ing to do as po­lice of­fi­cers is to try our best, guid­ed by our strate­gic plan, to bring pos­i­tiv­i­ty to the area to the peo­ple to San Fer­nan­do.”

Not­ing that this is an on­go­ing ini­tia­tive, he said they were look­ing at Mon Re­po next.

“We are go­ing to Mon Re­pos, we go­ing to Mara­bel­la, we go­ing to Bar­rack­pore, all the po­lice sta­tion dis­tricts that fall un­der the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Di­vi­sion.”

Adding that the re­sponse from the res­i­dents, in­clud­ing youths, has been over­whelm­ing, Carthy said res­i­dents, in­clud­ing youths on the block, were hap­py to see the po­lice in their com­mu­ni­ty.

La Ro­maine res­i­dent Cleav­on Phill, a mem­ber of the Op­er­a­tion Im­pact com­mit­tee, said the ini­tia­tive is need­ed and wel­comed.

“I am very proud of it be­cause from my stand­point as a par­ent, as a Trin­bag­on­ian and a strong Tringon­ian, I want to see bet­ter­ment and any­thing that is pos­i­tive and any­thing that is well put to­geth­er to help the up­com­ing youths and fur­ther bet­ter the coun­try, I am al­ways a part of it,” Phill said, ad­mit­ting there had been an in­crease in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Com­mend­ing the po­lice, Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh added, “This ini­tia­tive of the TTPS to work with the com­mu­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly the youths, will cer­tain­ly en­gen­der greater im­por­tance and rel­e­vance of cit­i­zens in this area to be able to con­tribute and not lim­ing on the block and en­gag­ing in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Singh said once res­i­dents are not in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, they do not need to fear the po­lice.