Jensen La Vende

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day she had giv­en an or­der to "un­leash the dogs of war" against crim­i­nals.Speak­ing at the of­fi­cial open­ing of the Pi­ar­co Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her gov­ern­ment would use any­thing nec­es­sary to re­store law and or­der in the coun­try.Her com­ments came on the heels of a rash of po­lice killings which have trig­gered crit­i­cism against po­lice for the use of ex­ces­sive force.

She said: "Know this, I am pre­pared to com­mit every re­source pos­si­ble, ex­plore all op­tions avail­able, utilise any ini­tia­tives used any­where with suc­cess in en­sur­ing we re­claim our coun­try from the crim­i­nals who want to feel em­bold­ened. Those days are over.

"The or­der is out, un­leash the dogs of war on those who flout the law and cre­ate hav­oc. We must bring them to their knees and let jus­tice pre­vail and let peace and law and or­der be re­stored."

Speak­ing on the 26 po­lice killings for the year, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for bal­ance to such re­ports, re­veal­ing that over the past two years there have been 63 po­lice who were shot in the line of du­ty and four who were killed.

She said that where there are al­le­ga­tions of in­jus­tice, an in­de­pen­dent and prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be con­duct­ed, and once there was ev­i­dence of guilt then the of­fend­ers should face the full brunt of the law.She added: "We will not tol­er­ate rogue of­fi­cers and they will be stamped out wher­ev­er they are found so the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and oth­er agen­cies have their work cut out."Hav­ing said that I ask that we don't jump to con­clu­sions, I am con­cerned with more than pass­ing in­ter­est the amount of peo­ple shot and killed by po­lice of­fi­cers.

"At the same time I don't see a list of the po­lice of­fi­cers shot at. I do not see the list of the num­ber of po­lice in­jured and killed. We must see the oth­er side of the pic­ture. We must not see one side."

The Prime Min­is­ter said that the po­lice who put their lives at risk dai­ly should be giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion and grat­i­tude for the ser­vice.She added that the fam­i­lies of po­lice should al­so be con­sid­ered as they too are af­fect­ed by neg­a­tive com­ments against the law­men.

More Re­sources

The Prime Min­is­ter said Pi­ar­co was the sec­ond po­lice sta­tion opened dur­ing her term so far while an ad­di­tion­al six were sched­uled to be com­plet­ed by next year.She said the Po­lice Ser­vice had 595 po­lice ve­hi­cles with glob­al po­si­tion­ing sys­tem (GPS) and would get an ad­di­tion­al 343 cars.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the po­lice sta­tion, which was hand­ed over to the po­lice on Feb­ru­ary 24, was com­plet­ed in De­cem­ber last year af­ter con­struc­tion be­gan on Ju­ly 23, 2012.

He said it was com­plet­ed with­in time and in bud­get, cost­ing $39 mil­lion.It has state­ment rooms, li­braries with mul­ti-me­dia and in­ter­net ac­cess, vic­tim re­cov­ery rooms, coun­selling rooms, dor­mi­to­ries, gym and kitchen.

The Mal­oney and Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tions have been com­plet­ed and would be hand­ed over soon, he said, with 16 fire sta­tions, which in­clude the Man­zanil­la, Bras­so and Black Rock, To­ba­go, fire sta­tions to be con­struct­ed soon.