Gail Alexan­der

To­ba­go po­lice failed to re­spond to a call from a fe­male vis­i­tor who was lat­er raped, robbed and beat­en and whose at­tack­ers had time to leave her house and re­turn to beat her up a sec­ond time, Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment sen­a­tor Dion Is­sac said yes­ter­day. "It's a trag­ic, graph­ic sto­ry and I'm sor­ry I have to bring it, but it's im­per­a­tive it must be said," Is­sac said in his maid­en con­tri­bu­tion in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

Is­sac was speak­ing on a mo­tion by the Op­po­si­tion PNM con­cern­ing the strengths and de­fi­cien­cies of the Po­lice Ser­vice and their im­pact on crime. Is­sac, of To­ba­go, was sworn in as a tem­po­rary Op­po­si­tion PNM sen­a­tor, re­plac­ing Sham­fa Cud­joe. Say­ing there was too much po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the Po­lice Ser­vice, Is­sac called for an im­me­di­ate end to this.

He slammed the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing ini­tia­tive, say­ing that un­der this plan, po­lice sta­tions at Char­lot­teville and Mo­ri­ah in To­ba­go closed at 9 pm and re­opened at 7 am. Is­sac ques­tioned what would hap­pen if a vis­i­tor called a sta­tion af­ter 9 pm. He said that in Char­lot­teville or Mo­ri­ah, there would be no re­sponse.

Not­ing that To­ba­go had many vis­i­tors, Is­sac said the ar­eas where both sta­tions were lo­cat­ed were re­mote places. "How can you close a po­lice sta­tion when the po­lice's mot­to is 'To Pro­tect and Serve?'" he said. "Open back the po­lice sta­tion forth­with! "The po­lice sta­tion has been rel­e­gat­ed to the sta­tus of a par­lour shop op­er­a­tion...this is not a po­lice ser­vice that pro­tects and serves."

Is­sac re­lat­ed what hap­pened con­cern­ing the fe­male vis­i­tor to To­ba­go who tried to get po­lice help. He said the vis­i­tor who owned a vil­la in To­ba­go was at home one evening when she re­alised there were in­trud­ers on the prop­er­ty. "She locked her­self in the room and called the po­lice sta­tion...They said they were com­ing," Is­sac said. "She told them there were some in­di­vid­u­als in her house.

"She said I think they're here to rob me, come. "Those in­di­vid­u­als had the time to rape that woman, to rob her, to beat her, to re­lieve her of her ATM card and go to the ATM ma­chine, on­ly to re­alise she had giv­en them the wrong PIN num­ber. "And then they had time to come back and beat her again to en­sure that she give them the right PIN!

"And still the po­lice did not ar­rive! Re­sponse time is crit­i­cal for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice." Isaac did not iden­ti­fy when the in­ci­dent oc­curred, where in To­ba­go; or if the po­lice ever did turn up or what was the out­come of the sit­u­a­tion. He said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly had in­sti­tut­ed a 211 emer­gency num­ber.

Is­sac al­so not­ed that Scar­bor­ough's Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion Di­vi­sion (CID) did not work on pub­lic hol­i­days or week­ends and on­ly worked from 8 am to 4 pm, and from 4 pm to 12am. "So in this 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing ini­tia­tive, po­lice do not pro­tect and serve on week­ends or pub­lic hol­i­days or af­ter hours," he said.

"If you call them af­ter, they can say they are 'off.' It can't re­main that way in To­ba­go." Is­sac said there could be far-reach­ing con­se­quences for To­ba­go con­cern­ing crime since its liveli­hood was based on tourism. He not­ed that the Crime Watch show re­cent­ly in­ter­viewed a per­son who had spo­ken about the drug trade in To­ba­go and had called names.

"What is the po­lice do­ing about that? Names have been called," Is­sac added. He said the re­cent state of emer­gency had caused To­ba­go to beef up its mar­ket­ing. Is­sac ques­tioned why the Gov­ern­ment chose to re­view the plans for po­lice sta­tions in Rox­bor­ough and Old Grange which he said would take a "cou­ple years."

He said: "So it may take un­til 2014 or 2015 when gen­er­al elec­tions roll around...this de­lay is like an­oth­er de­layed process-the Green Pa­per (on in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment for To­ba­go)." Is­sac re­ceived desk-thump­ing sup­port for his con­tri­bu­tion, not on­ly from his PNM col­leagues, but al­so PP/COP sen­a­tor Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith.