Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist pas­tor Clive Dot­tin, who does out­reach work in com­mu­ni­ties such as Laven­tille and Mor­vant, said yes­ter­day it was known those ar­eas were re­cruit­ing grounds for gang lead­ers."The coun­try must face the fact that adult gang lead­ers are re­cruit­ing teenagers and putting them on the bat­tle­front," Dot­tin told the T&T Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view."They are do­ing a phe­nom­e­nal job re­cruit­ing teens. It should be of great con­cern to all of us in so­ci­ety," he added.

Dot­tin said the is­sue spoke to a col­lapse of par­ent­ing and fam­i­ly in so­ci­ety, adding un­less these is­sues are fixed the fight against crime will not be won.Mean­while, In­spec­tor Roger Alexan­der, head of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion task Force (NEDTF) and vice-pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, said he was dis­turbed by me­dia re­ports his men had mur­dered the cousins.

Speak­ing on Be­yond the Tape pro­gramme, he said when the me­dia vis­it­ed the area on Mon­day they spoke to the rel­a­tives of the cousins but failed to speak with the vic­tims he claimed the cousins had ear­li­er ter­rorised. Asked about the ac­cu­sa­tions the of­fi­cers were ex­ces­sive, Alexan­der said:"How can a team be act­ing in an ex­ces­sive way when all they do­ing is pro­tect­ing their lives, the lives of the pub­lic and their col­leagues.

"The pub­lic must un­der­stand if we worked in places like West­moor­ings we would nev­er have any con­fronta­tion."We work in a place known to be a hotspot, where peo­ple are ag­gres­sive to­wards the po­lice and are en­cour­aged to be ag­gres­sive to­wards the po­lice, yet you want us to be like, 'good morn­ing do you have a gun in the bush? Would you stop shoot­ing at us please.'"

Alexan­der said psy­cho-so­cial mes­sages be­ing re­layed to the po­lice was that they should hes­i­tate in those sit­u­a­tions but he said that could cost them their lives.In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams said he would not be com­ment­ing on the is­sue of po­lice killings, since he has a meet­ing to­day with head of the Po­lice Com­plains Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Gillian Lucky.