Melis­sa Doughty

The Gov­ern­ment's Rapid Re­sponse crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive will be im­ple­ment­ed from De­cem­ber 1, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith an­nounced yes­ter­day.Speak­ing af­ter a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing with res­i­dents of An­dalu­cia, Mar­aval, Grif­fith said the unit was one of sev­er­al ini­tia­tives an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Au­gust, af­ter a joint meet­ing with Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley to ad­dress the es­ca­lat­ing crime prob­lem fol­low­ing a spate of killings in East Port-of-Spain.

Grif­fith said the unit will pro­vide a 24-hour mo­bile pres­ence in three to four ar­eas dur­ing the pi­lot project, in­clud­ing the west­ern penin­su­la (Diego Mar­tin, Care­nage), San Fer­nan­do and pos­si­bly Siparia.He said 51 ve­hi­cles will pa­trol des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas on a 24-hour ba­sis. The ve­hi­cles will be equipped with GPS sys­tems and will be mon­i­tored through the min­istry's op­er­a­tion cen­tre to en­sure they are where they are sup­posed to be at any giv­en time. When ful­ly op­er­a­tional, the Rapid Re­sponse unit will op­er­ate in 15 re­gions in T&T.

The min­is­ter said the unit will act as a vis­i­ble de­ter­rent to crim­i­nals and will pro­vide a sense of com­fort to cit­i­zens.Grif­fith said the min­istry is con­sid­er­ing the re­vamp­ing of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing. He said his meet­ings with varous res­i­dents' groups evolved out of the plan to re­vamp com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing. He has al­ready met with res­i­dents of St Ann's and Holo­lo to as­cer­tain the threats in those ar­eas and to "as­sist the com­mu­ni­ties in build­ing a re­la­tion­ship with the po­lice."

He said he has been speak­ing with act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams about the mat­ter but could not pro­vide a def­i­nite time­line for the re­vamp­ing to be­gin. Grif­fith said the Na­tion­al Train­ing Po­lice Acad­e­my is im­por­tant be­cause not every of­fi­cer could be a com­mu­ni­ty po­lice of­fi­cer. Some of­fi­cers, he ex­plained, have to be trained specif­i­cal­ly in com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing so they would be able to build a re­la­tion­ships with res­i­dents in com­mu­ni­ties, which would lead to res­i­dents pass­ing out in­for­ma­tion about crime.

He said pur­pose of the com­mu­ni­ty po­lice would be in­for­ma­tion­al, while the Rapid Re­sponse would be op­er­a­tional.Grif­fith said in re­vamp­ing com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, more meet­ings will be held be­tween res­i­dents and the po­lice.Asked if the re­vamp­ing of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing meant more foot pa­trols in des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas, Grif­fith said the Rapid Re­sponse unit and aer­i­al pa­trols us­ing the four na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copters will be used to fight crime. Grif­fith said he would in­sist that the he­li­copters be used for low aer­i­al sur­veil­lance.

The min­is­ter said he hoped to vis­it as many com­mu­ni­ties as pos­si­ble since craft­ing any crime plan should in­volve di­a­logue with res­i­dents.At yes­ter­day's meet­ing with the An­dalu­cia res­i­dents, Grif­fith was ac­com­pa­nied by se­nior of­fi­cers from the Mar­aval Po­lice Sta­tion.

"I have been go­ing to the ground, speak­ing to res­i­dents and shar­ing their con­cerns," he said. Grif­fith said he of­fered ad­vice to the res­i­dents who are of­ten seen as "soft tar­gets" by crim­i­nals.