An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Al­though Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­tin­ues to re­main tight-lipped about the how joint po­lice and army units will op­er­ate from the new po­lice posts be­ing erect­ed in com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try, a se­nior of­fi­cer says an up­date is ex­pect­ed by mid-Sep­tem­ber re­gard­ing its roll­out.

Snr Supt Rudolph Bhag­wan­deen was yes­ter­day un­cer­tain just how se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel will be as­signed and if the pre-fab­ri­cat­ed build­ings will con­tain prison cells, but con­firmed, “Per­sons can en­ter and make re­ports if they have to and in­ter­act with the po­lice of­fi­cers.”

Speak­ing at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Bhag­wan­deen, who is as­signed to the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, said, “The in­ten­tion is to man them on a 24-hour ba­sis. The hu­man re­source as­pect of it, or the re­sources for these posts, that is still in the stage of dis­cus­sion.”

Bhag­wan­deen wel­comed the lat­est crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, which he said was “need­ed.”

While he ex­pressed sup­port for the ini­tia­tive, he was cau­tious in re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the post’s phys­i­cal lay­out, staffing re­quire­ments and op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Asked how soon the posts would be­come op­er­a­tional, Bhag­wan­deen said, “If I have to give a time­line, I think maybe by the mid­dle of next month, we should have an up­date.”

Bhag­wan­deen said his di­vi­sion would be get­ting four of the 24 con­firmed posts.

These in­clude sites at the Cou­va In­ter­change, Carlsen Field, St He­le­na and Fe­lic­i­ty.

He said his di­vi­sion had pro­posed a fifth site at Brent­wood, Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, but this is yet to be con­firmed.

Bhag­wan­deen said, “The se­lect­ed lo­ca­tions re­flect ar­eas that have record­ed lev­els of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, based on an analy­sis of the crime sta­tis­tics over a pe­ri­od of time.”

He said the de­ci­sions were da­ta-dri­ven and in­tel­li­gence-led, and were part of the po­lice thrust to be­come more proac­tive as op­posed to re­ac­tive.

Ad­dress­ing the hu­man re­source chal­lenges, Bhag­wan­deen said, “Once the posts are placed at these lo­ca­tions, we in the TTPS will have it man­aged ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly.”

He said the op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty would in­clude not on­ly per­son­nel to man the post, but al­so to re­spond in an emer­gency.

Boast­ing that the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion had achieved a de­tec­tion rate of 43 per cent for Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes (SRCs) be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 to Au­gust 10, Bhag­wan­deen said the di­vi­sion re­port­ed a 19 per cent de­crease in over­all re­port­ed crime.

High­light­ing what he de­scribed as a “re­mark­able” de­crease in homi­cides, which moved from 43 in 2025 to 25 for the year so far, he said this rep­re­sent­ed a 42 per cent de­cline and was a “strong in­di­ca­tor of fo­cused in­ter­ven­tion against vi­o­lent crimes.”

He said of the 25 killings, four were solved.

Bhag­wan­deen said an analy­sis of down­ward trends were not­ed in all cat­e­gories ex­cept home in­va­sions. How­ev­er, the as­sured that at­ten­tion and re­sources are be­ing di­rect­ed to this area with a view to bring­ing it down.

“The ar­rests and pros­e­cu­tion of eight ma­jor per­pe­tra­tors and the deaths of six oth­er al­leged per­pe­tra­tors dur­ing threat­en­ing en­coun­ters with law en­force­ment per­son­nel which led to their demise, re­sult­ed in a re­mark­able de­crease in such crimes,” Bhag­wan­deen stat­ed.