Geisha Kow­lessar

Rev­ellers in­tent on drink­ing and dri­ving this Car­ni­val should be pre­pared to jump up be­hind bars.This was the warn­ing yes­ter­day from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith, who said there would be no com­pro­mise by the po­lice.Eighty-sev­en more po­lice of­fi­cers have been trained to do breathal­yser tests na­tion­wide dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. They com­plet­ed the stip­u­lat­ed five-day breath-al­co­hol test­ing, train­ing and eval­u­a­tion to be cer­ti­fied in breathal­yser test­ing.

There are close to 300 po­lice of­fi­cers trained to do breathal­yser test­ing, said SRP Brent Bat­son, co-or­di­na­tor of the Po­lice Ser­vice's road safe­ty project. Grif­fith said the fact that it was Car­ni­val was not a rea­son for peo­ple to drink and dri­ve."It is not ne­go­tiable. Of­fi­cers will not turn a blind eye. Car­ni­val or no Car­ni­val, there will be no ex­cus­es for drink­ing and dri­ving and break­ing the law in gen­er­al.

"Why should the po­lice be flex­i­ble in per­form­ing their du­ties just be­cause it is Car­ni­val? Of­fi­cers will take a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach and those who have no in­ten­tion of lis­ten­ing will cer­tain­ly pay the con­se­quences," Grif­fith added.He said for every Car­ni­val event the po­lice had spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tional plans which were in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven and al­so took risks in­to con­sid­er­a­tion."The Po­lice Ser­vice have been work­ing close­ly with the De­fence Force and so far we have had no even­tu­al­i­ties," Grif­fith added.

He said there would al­so a be strong vis­i­ble pres­ence of uni­formed and plain­clothes of­fi­cers on the roads sup­port­ed by of­fi­cers of the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion."The in­ten­tion is to re­mind par­ty­go­ers to al­ways be mind­ful of traf­fic laws and act re­spon­si­bly by prac­tis­ing road safe­ty dur­ing this hec­tic pe­ri­od of non-stop Car­ni­val events," Grif­fith urged.

CoP: po­lice out in full force

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, who was in full sup­port of re­cruit­ing more of­fi­cers for breathal­yser test­ing, said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day po­lice would be out in full force every­where. "There will be no con­cen­tra­tion of of­fi­cers in Port-of-Spain on­ly. Those who want to drink and dri­ve should be wary, be­cause of­fi­cers will in­deed be all over the coun­try," Williams said.

He echoed Grif­fith's sen­ti­ment that the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od was an op­por­tune time to in­crease the man­pow­er to train po­lice in breathal­yser test­ing. Say­ing that far too of­ten in­no­cent peo­ple have been killed on the roads, the act­ing top cop added, "What is hap­pen­ing is, we are con­tin­u­ing to in­crease the num­ber of of­fi­cers who are trained as tech­ni­cians to fa­cil­i­tate breath test­ing.

"We con­tin­ue to ad­vise peo­ple don't drink, (or) get a des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver, be­cause peo­ple who are not drink­ing al­co­hol are get­ting killed by peo­ple who are drink­ing al­co­hol and dri­ving. We are pro­tect­ing in­no­cent peo­ple," Williams said.Say­ing there was a com­pre­hen­sive Car­ni­val plan in place Williams added, "This year's Car­ni­val will be bet­ter than last year."