An is­land-wide se­cu­ri­ty net will be cast across all of Grena­da this East­er Week­end when the coun­try hosts the 51st edi­tion of the Carif­ta Games. From Sat­ur­day (March 30) to Mon­day (April 1), the re­gion’s best ju­nior ath­letes will com­pete in one of the world’s pre­mier show­cas­es for young ath­let­ic tal­ent.

While the Ki­rani James Ath­let­ics Sta­di­um is near­ly sold out for all six ses­sions of the Games, re­flect­ing Grena­da’s high in­ter­est in the sport of ath­let­ics, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice of the Roy­al Grena­da Po­lice Force Van­nie Cur­wen gave as­sur­ances that his fel­low of­fi­cers will al­so be out in full force.

“You can ex­pect to see ad­di­tion­al po­lice of­fi­cers in the streets, in the bays, in the creeks, through all the fun that you are hav­ing yes we are go­ing to be there,” said ACP Cur­wen at yes­ter­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence to launch the Games at the Ki­rani James Sta­di­um, Riv­er Road in St George.

Cur­wen added, “The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has in­di­cat­ed that all off-du­ty is sus­pend­ed. This means that all po­lice of­fi­cers on the is­land will be de­ployed through­out the long East­er.

“What­ev­er parish you may be in, what­ev­er road you are trav­el­ling on, be ex­pect­ed to be de­layed, be ex­pect­ed to be searched, and be ex­pect­ed to be asked about your where­abouts.”

Clos­er to the venue, ACP Cur­wen rolled out a de­tailed se­cu­ri­ty plan that will al­so greet those who plan to wit­ness the Games live. This in­clud­ed the im­ple­men­ta­tion of strict traf­fic and park­ing re­stric­tions along ac­cess routes near the Ki­rani James Sta­di­um.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, elec­tron­ic and phys­i­cal search­es of pa­trons will be con­duct­ed as they en­ter the 8,000-seater sta­di­um.

“To en­sure that we de­liv­er on the promis­es we have made as a coun­try, the se­cu­ri­ty must be op­ti­mum. We have de­liv­ered on these ex­pec­ta­tions be­fore and the Carif­ta Games will be no dif­fer­ent.”

Threats to ju­nior ath­letes min­imised

On the is­sue of safe­guard­ing the over 700 ath­letes at the Games, many of whom are legal­ly con­sid­ered mi­nors, lo­cal or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee (LOC) chair­per­son and Grena­da Olympic Com­mit­tee gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Ve­da Bruno-Vic­tor was adamant that the strictest mea­sures will al­so be im­ple­ment­ed.

“We have trained a lot of our peo­ple in our dif­fer­ent sport­ing ar­eas to work with our ath­letes in that re­gard. We have al­so made prepa­ra­tions and that’s why it is cost­ing gov­ern­ment a lot more than it nor­mal­ly would for ac­com­mo­da­tion,” she said.

“This is to en­sure that they (ath­letes) are placed in a man­ner that doesn’t of­fer much threat. Safe­guard­ing is a cru­cial el­e­ment of the games and the is­lands com­ing, are al­so com­ing with ad­di­tion­al per­son­nel to help in that area. So we are well pre­pared for the safe­guard­ing, both as a coun­try and the oth­er coun­tries of the Caribbean be­cause this is at the fore­front of de­lib­er­a­tions for sport.

“Safe­guard­ing in sports is the process of pro­tect­ing chil­dren and adults from harm by pro­vid­ing a safe space in which to play sport and be ac­tive.”