Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob be­lieves the ad­di­tion of 110 new re­cruits to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice can even­tu­al­ly help them get a han­dle on the crime lev­els cur­rent­ly spi­ralling out of con­trol.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day as he ad­dressed the new re­cruits dur­ing a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny at the St James Bar­racks. Dur­ing their pass­ing out pa­rade lat­er on in the day, Ja­cob again in­di­cat­ed to them that they will pro­vide more boots on the ground as pa­trolling of­fi­cers to re­spond to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. (See oth­er sto­ry)

Ja­cob main­tained his stance that a more vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence is the best way to com­bat crime. He al­so said there will be more room for of­fi­cers to spe­cialise, which he feels will re­duce a great deal of or­gan­ised and gang-re­lat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“More po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing out there will cre­ate that pres­ence, you know and that sense of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for our pop­u­la­tion. As the of­fi­cers pass-off from the train­ing col­lege, we will take some of them over a pe­ri­od who have spe­cialised skills to de­vel­op them. The more of­fi­cers we get and some spe­cialise in par­tic­u­lar ar­eas with cer­tain qual­i­fi­ca­tions, the Po­lice Ser­vice will get bet­ter and bet­ter and def­i­nite­ly, we will see a re­duc­tion in the crime and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ja­cob told Guardian me­dia in an in­ter­view af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny.

Asked al­so about the re­cent surge in the mur­ders of young peo­ple and chil­dren, Ja­cob said this was in­evitable giv­en that gang-re­lat­ed crime was on the rise and there was an in­crease of il­le­gal gun own­er­ship.

“This is di­rect­ly linked to the use of sub­ma­chine guns and high-pow­ered ri­fles, and I said be­fore we will have a lot of in­ci­dents where per­sons will use re­volvers and pis­tols. Now, with the sub­ma­chine guns, when they come there will be a lot of per­sons who will be hurt in the process, and these are un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tions and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the ex­ec­u­tive, we say con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies and we are very much con­cerned with what is hap­pen­ing.”

He added, “So, the more that we can take the firearms or those types of firearms off the street and the more we can pre­vent them from com­ing in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go, we will help def­i­nite­ly with the sit­u­a­tion that is oc­cur­ring.”

In the past few weeks, there have been mur­ders of in­no­cent chil­dren which have shocked cit­i­zens.

The most re­cent one was over the week­end, when three-year-old Naz­im Owen was killed, along with three adults, when gun­men opened fire on a ve­hi­cle they were trav­el­ling in along the Diego Mar­tin Main Road.

On Oc­to­ber 15, nine-year-old Jo­mol Mod­este was killed while play­ing with friends at a recre­ation ground in Ch­agua­nas. And on Oc­to­ber 8, Videsh Dookran, 15, was found in an aban­doned house in Ste Madeleine. He had been shot to death.

Ear­li­er on dur­ing the grad­u­a­tion yes­ter­day, Ja­cob ad­vised the re­cruits that they will be join­ing the ser­vice at a time when crime in T&T was at a peak.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a high rate of or­gan­ised and vi­o­lent crime, which in­volves or­gan­ised gang ac­tiv­i­ties. The gang mem­bers and oth­er crim­i­nal el­e­ments have even bro­ken their own rules, there­fore, we are now ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the killing of women and chil­dren. Which at a time was a taboo to the gang’s norms and val­ues.”

He added, “There is al­so a pro­lif­er­a­tion of the il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion in the streets and in our com­mu­ni­ties. This demon­strates the need for ad­di­tion­al pro­fes­sion­al and well-trained law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to be on the ground to as­sist in this war against crime, I wish to thank you for com­ing on board at the right time.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the re­cruits yes­ter­day was the vale­dic­to­ri­an of the co­hort, Khalid Ho­sein. Ho­sein, who earned five in­di­vid­ual awards, en­cour­aged his peers to press for­ward with the man­date which was giv­en to them.

“We are all that stands some­times be­tween the mon­sters and the vul­ner­a­ble. Be re­spect­ful, for that is a two-way street. Re­mem­ber that we are hold­ers of the of­fice of po­lice but we are hu­mans first. There­fore, as we should meet an­oth­er hu­man soul, let our in­ter­ac­tions be hu­mane. Let us re-es­tab­lish the spark that drove us to a life of ser­vice and let us re­new our re­solve to pro­tect and serve Trinidad and To­ba­go with pride,” he said.