Geisha Kow­lessar

De­spite the heavy pres­ence of po­lice and army of­fi­cials the killings con­tin­ue in Laven­tille, says act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams. He said so while speak­ing at a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing at the St Paul Street Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, last night.

Say­ing crime had been a so­cial prob­lem which plagued Laven­tille for many years, Williams said the Po­lice Ser­vice was seek­ing to part­ner with dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties "not by word-of- mouth but by ac­tion." He added: "We know for a fact hard polic­ing by it­self does not work be­cause we have seen over the years a con­tin­u­a­tion of vi­o­lence in Laven­tille, re­gard­less of the heavy pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers.

"So we be­lieve there is a need for us to find oth­er ways to ad­dress the chal­lenges that con­front the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty." He as­sured that the Po­lice Ser­vice would con­tin­ue to work with the com­mu­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly with re­gards to res­i­dents' safe­ty. He added: "The time has come for us to stop watch­ing, stop talk­ing and start do­ing things which can make a dif­fer­ence in the life of the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty.

"But no amount of good in­ten­tion with­out the ded­i­ca­tion of the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty would make a dif­fer­ence."