School children who deliberately choose to loiter before and after school hours will be closely monitored by police officers soon.
The officers will be part of the new Emergency Response Unit which will incorporate officers in over 140 police vehicles specially designated and dispatched to strategic locations, especially near schools.
This was yesterday disclosed by Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith during a media briefing at the Ministry of Education’s Port-of-Spain.
Griffith, along with a contingent of senior officers, had earlier met with Education Minister Anthony Garcia and his team in a strategic meeting discussing issues related to education, which lasted just over 75 minutes.
Speaking afterwards, Griffith explained that the patrols would fulfil part of the operational requirements in maintaining high visibility, ensuring rapid response and also serving as a deterrent to students who loiter.
“The vehicles will be GPS-equipped and monitored by our Operational Command Centre. They would be in their area of responsibility, placed in strategic locations outside those schools, especially in the areas where they believe there may be more concerns. It will provide a deterrent and ensure to keep an environment safe and secure,” Griffith said.
Asked how school children who are involved in gang activities and affiliated with gangs would be dealt with, Griffith admitted the issue was raised at the meeting and it was made known to Garcia that the TTPS had “operational initiatives” in place for that specific purpose.
“We do know exactly how we intend to deal with it…unfortunately, it would be impractical for me to state, for obvious reasons, what we intend to do but we are aware of the situation and we are aware of the threat. We have assessed and we are not denying it, but because of it we are fully aware of what we need to do at the right places and at the right time.”
Garcia added that because of national security, all details on these talks would be withheld. However, Garcia ruled out the implementation of metal detectors in schools.
At the end of the meeting, it was decided that two committees would be implemented to deal with bullying, behavioural issues, gang involvement, violence and other social issues/concerns.