Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin is warn­ing crim­i­nals to stay out of Tu­na­puna, say­ing they will be caught as the Ea­gle Eye project, a 24-hour po­lice-mon­i­tored CCTV sys­tem, has been launched.

The launch took place at the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day and saw the in­stal­la­tion of over 100 cam­eras across the dis­trict, which has seen an up­surge in mur­ders and vi­o­lence.

Ben­jamin told those gath­ered that it is the in­ten­tion of the ex­ec­u­tive of the po­lice ser­vice to roll out such ini­tia­tives na­tion­wide, as they aligned with the TTPS’ strate­gic plan to build com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tion­ships.

In his first pub­lic speak­ing en­gage­ment since he was ap­point­ed on Feb­ru­ary 16, Ben­jamin said Ea­gle Eye is a warn­ing to crim­i­nals to steer clear of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I want to al­so say that this will al­so help in us be­ing able to mit­i­gate against cer­tain risk fac­tors that we be­lieve will send a pos­i­tive mes­sage to at least those who might want to come to Tu­na­puna to do all sorts of acts. We are say­ing that Tu­na­puna is out of bounds from to­day!”

Ben­jamin said the project, which saw the in­stal­la­tion of over 100 cam­eras paid for and main­tained by mem­bers of the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC) and the Tu­na­puna Sta­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil (TP­SCC), comes a year af­ter the ex­plo­sion of gang vi­o­lence that saw sev­er­al mur­ders.

At Train­line Vil­lage, St Au­gus­tine, which is part of the Tu­na­puna polic­ing dis­trict, sev­en peo­ple were killed in four months in 2023. And as re­cent as Jan­u­ary this year, two peo­ple were shot dead out­side the Tu­na­puna Mar­ket, with three oth­ers in­jured.

Last Feb­ru­ary, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher vis­it­ed Tu­na­puna, where they heard about crime con­cerns from busi­ness own­ers and res­i­dents.

Yes­ter­day, head of the di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Richard Smith, said the Ea­gle Eye project was al­ready reap­ing re­wards, with the in­ter­cep­tion of car thieves hours af­ter a ve­hi­cle was stolen out­side a su­per­mar­ket.

Beam­ing with pride to be the first to launch such an ini­tia­tive, Smith said it will soon be rolled out in the North­ern and North East­ern Di­vi­sions.

He said Ea­gle Eye was soft-launched on Car­ni­val Fri­day (Feb­ru­ary 9) and trained of­fi­cers mon­i­tored the fes­tiv­i­ties and have been keep­ing an eye on the area ever since.

GT­CIC pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio said the project fos­ters a sym­bi­ot­ic re­la­tion­ship be­tween com­mu­ni­ties and po­lice. He said with busi­ness­es work­ing with po­lice and pool­ing re­sources, they can “cre­ate a re­silient busi­ness ecosys­tem that fos­ters growth, in­no­va­tion and pros­per­i­ty”.

The GT­CIC and TP­SCC chose Cit­i­zen Sur­veil­lance Net­work to sup­ply and up­keep the cam­era sys­tem, which TP­SCC pres­i­dent Neil Boodoos­ingh said was ben­e­fi­cial to all stake­hold­ers, giv­ing the busi­ness own­ers val­ue for mon­ey.