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RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Head of the Cen­tral Po­lice Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Curt Si­mon, says he is con­cerned about an up­surge of crime in the di­vi­sion and the im­pact of COVID-19 in the dis­trict.

He made the com­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s T&T Po­lice Ser­vice me­dia con­fer­ence at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

Si­mon made the point that de­spite the fact that Trinidad and To­ba­go is cur­rent­ly in a pan­dem­ic, his of­fi­cers are try­ing their best with their polic­ing ef­forts.

“The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion is unique, as it falls in Ca­roni and if you fol­low the num­bers, it is a lead­ing place with the amount of in­fec­tions and deaths,” Si­mon said.

“Dai­ly, a num­ber of per­sons are com­ing to the of­fice for cre­ma­tions and it is af­fect­ing our of­fi­cers, yet they are able to func­tion and keep their heads up and chins up. We call up­on them and they re­spond and we are very thank­ful for them for that, es­pe­cial­ly go­ing in­to the Christ­mas.”

Si­mon urged the res­i­dents in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion to pay at­ten­tion, “be a lit­tle more cog­nizant to the pub­lic health pro­to­cols so your lives can be saved.”

How­ev­er, he said of­fi­cers are not on­ly con­cerned about COVID-19 but about an up­surge in crimes.

The se­nior of­fi­cer said they are par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bled by the num­ber of shoot­ings and wound­ings but as­sured the de­tec­tion rate is up to 50 per cent, which is a five per cent in­crease from last year.

He said be­cause their de­tec­tion rate is up, he be­lieves it pre­vents the mur­der rate in the di­vi­sion from climb­ing.

“We are able to peg back se­ri­ous crimes in the di­vi­sion and we’re per­form­ing bet­ter now in this pe­ri­od than last year with a five per cent de­crease and we ex­pect that by year’s end, we would be able to see a bet­ter per­for­mance and be able to talk on it more,” Si­mon said.

Mean­while, Supt Michael Pierre, who is in charge of Op­er­a­tions, said one of the ini­tia­tives launched by the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion is a pro­gramme for the so­cial­ly dis­placed, who of­fi­cers be­lieve have been re­spon­si­ble for crimes in the En­ter­prise and Lange Park ar­eas.

“It is a holis­tic ap­proach to crime-fight­ing where we are tar­get­ing of­fend­ers. But we have looked at the soft and hard ap­proach and short term and long term projects to bring a con­trol in the di­vi­sion,” Pierre said.

“Street dwellers, over a pe­ri­od of time, some crimes em­anate through those home­less per­sons and through Sgt Small, we have em­barked up­on a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme.”

Pierre said added that so far they have had four suc­cess­ful par­tic­i­pants in the pro­gramme.