Shal­iza Has­sanali

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has de­nied that there are plans in the pipeline to dis­band three of its po­lice sta­tions sit­u­at­ed along the east and north east coasts, which are used by drug and gun run­ners as a main port of en­try. The con­fir­ma­tion came from TTPS' di­rec­tor of pub­lic af­fairs Sharon Lee As­sang amidst re­ports from Matelot res­i­dents on Thurs­day that the tem­po­rary po­lice sta­tion in their com­mu­ni­ty was ear­marked to be closed down. Po­lice of­fi­cers sta­tioned at Matelot last Thurs­day stat­ed that they too heard about the im­pend­ing clo­sure from their se­niors be­cause Gov­ern­ment had no mon­ey to erect a per­ma­nent sta­tion, which would cost sev­er­al mil­lions. Of­fi­cers at the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tion have been op­er­at­ing from a rent­ed house for years. Lee As­sang said the TTPS had no in­ten­tion of clos­ing the sta­tions.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day on be­half of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs, Lee As­sang said for the TTPS to dis­band a po­lice sta­tion they would have to do an as­sess­ment tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the size of the dis­trict's pop­u­la­tion, the num­ber of dis­tressed calls reach­ing the sta­tion and crimes com­mit­ted in the area. Pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion was al­so re­quired. She how­ev­er not­ed that a ma­jor trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tive had tak­en hold in the TTPS, geared at restor­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence and tak­ing polic­ing in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry. The pi­lot project which was ini­ti­at­ed with­in the West­ern Di­vi­sion out of the West End Mod­el Po­lice Sta­tion in Diego Mar­tin in April fo­cus­es on a dif­fer­ent mod­el in which po­lice of­fi­cers are de­ployed and work on a shift sys­tem. This, she in­sist­ed, will be rolled out at the oth­er eight di­vi­sions in the TTPS in due course. "The po­lice ser­vice is try­ing to be proac­tive with its ser­vices."

Pres­i­dent of Matelot Vil­lage Coun­cil An­der­son Zoe said for the past two months vil­lagers have been hear­ing about the clo­sure of Matelot, Man­zanil­la and Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tions. There fears were in­ten­si­fied when of­fi­cers at­tached to Matelot Po­lice Sta­tion had hint­ed that the po­lice sta­tions would soon be no more. Zoe said for years Matelot has been used as a main point of en­try by drug lords and gun run­ners.

"It is where most of the coun­try's weapon­ry and nar­cotics come through the back door un­de­tect­ed and end up flood­ing the streets." Two years ago, Zoe said crimes and gang ac­tiv­i­ty soared in the com­mu­ni­ty due to the ab­sence of a po­lice post. At that time, Zoe said re­ports had to be made to the To­co Po­lice Sta­tion 17 miles from their com­mu­ni­ty. Fight for turf among the five gangs, Zoe said, led to sev­er­al vil­lagers be­ing at­tacked. Drugs, main­ly mar­i­jua­na, was trans­port­ed from St Vin­cent to the north east coast dur­ing the cov­er of dark­ness.

Boat en­gines, nets and bar­rels of gaso­line were reg­u­lar­ly pil­fered from fish­er­man ply­ing their trades.

"That's when the po­lice ser­vice de­cid­ed to es­tab­lish a tem­po­rary sta­tion built out of freight con­tain­ers."

Zoe said as soon as the nine po­lice­men set­tled in the com­mu­ni­ty, sev­er­al ma­jor drug busts were made, bring­ing an end to the law­less gangs and a sigh of re­lief to vil­lagers. The biggest haul the po­lice made was 694 kilo­grams of mar­i­jua­na val­ued $8 mil­lion last March. Though the con­di­tions un­der which the of­fi­cers work are not of the best, Zoe praised the po­lice of­fi­cers in their fight against crime. Zoe made an ap­peal for a per­ma­nent po­lice sta­tion in their com­mu­ni­ty, stat­ing that Matelot was one area that need­ed con­stant sur­veil­lance and pa­trolling of of­fi­cers be­cause of the un­avail­abil­i­ty of a Coast Guard base along the seafront, which he said was of crit­i­cal im­por­tance. Trustee of King Fish­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion Al­bert Cum­mings said build­ing a cow shed for the of­fi­cers was a no-no. Cum­mings in­vit­ed Gibbs to vis­it Matelot to see the cramped con­di­tions po­lice of­fi­cers are forced to work in.