Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The ad­di­tion of 51 elec­tric po­lice pa­trol cars is ex­pect­ed to en­hance the cov­er­age and crime-fight­ing ca­pac­i­ties of po­lice of­fi­cers as part of a new pa­trol ini­tia­tive; how­ev­er, of­fi­cers as­signed to use the ve­hi­cles are re­mind­ed to use the new re­sources re­spon­si­bly.

The ve­hi­cles, which in­clude sev­er­al Rid­dara and Hyundai pick-up vans, are the first batch of elec­tric ve­hi­cles to be added to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) fleet.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter in­spect­ing the cars at the pa­rade grounds of the TTPS Train­ing Acad­e­my in St James yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro im­plored of­fi­cers us­ing the new ve­hi­cles to be re­spon­si­ble and use them with care.

Re­spond­ing to the per­cep­tion that some po­lice of­fi­cers did not ex­er­cise the nec­es­sary cau­tion when dri­ving marked po­lice cars, lead­ing to ac­ci­dents and un­nec­es­sary dam­age, Gue­var­ro re­mind­ed of­fi­cers that dis­ci­pli­nary pro­to­cols were in place to deal with reck­less of­fi­cers.

“Be wary of the man­ner in which we treat with the ve­hi­cles, the re­sources that are giv­en to the po­lice.

“At the end of the day, we still have dis­ci­pline and dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures in place for those who are found er­rant,” top cop warned.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der is­sued a sim­i­lar warn­ing to po­lice of­fi­cers, as he al­so en­cour­aged of­fi­cers to do their best to main­tain the ve­hi­cles, not­ing that while they were the prop­er­ty of the Gov­ern­ment, of­fi­cers should take own­er­ship of equip­ment and use the nec­es­sary care.

“Take care of it like it’s your own, but use it to pro­tect the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go with pride.”

Alexan­der said the pro­vi­sion of the ve­hi­cles was tes­ta­ment to the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued sup­port of se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty, as he was con­fi­dent that the new re­sources would strength­en the ca­pac­i­ties of the po­lice and their abil­i­ty to short­en re­sponse times to emer­gen­cies.

Re­fer­ring to his past as a po­lice of­fi­cer, Alexan­der said that while such po­lice ve­hi­cles would have great­ly en­hanced ef­fi­cien­cies and re­spon­sive­ness in his time, the tech­nol­o­gy would em­pow­er a new gen­er­a­tion of of­fi­cers to make a tan­gi­ble, pos­i­tive change in the com­mu­ni­ties they po­lice.

“Bet­ter late than nev­er, we are ready, and the po­lice ser­vice is tak­ing it to the next lev­el.

“This is a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er who isn’t about talk, he’s about ac­tion. What else can you ask for? The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to re­source the po­lice ser­vice, so now it’s for the po­lice ser­vice to take the re­sources pro­vid­ed and sup­ply it in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions to serve the peo­ple.”

In ad­di­tion to ob­serv­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of the ve­hi­cles, the cer­e­mo­ny al­so marked the launch of the ac­tive di­rect­ed grid pa­trol ini­tia­tive, a strat­e­gy aimed at max­imis­ing the cov­er­age of pa­trols us­ing few­er of­fi­cers through in­tel­li­gence-led de­ploy­ment.

Com­ment­ing on the rein­tro­duc­tion of the strat­e­gy, Gue­var­ro said he was op­ti­mistic that it would yield re­sults by en­sur­ing the best use of avail­able re­sources by in­te­grat­ing tech­no­log­i­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ties and op­er­a­tional vig­i­lance.

“What da­ta has shown us is there are par­tic­u­lar spots along the East­ern Main Road, for in­stance, that are high crime-prone, and those are the ar­eas that we’ll be hav­ing the grid pa­trols, in­ter­lap­ping grid pa­trols, so you’ll al­ways have an ear­ly re­sponse in par­tic­u­lar ar­eas.”

The ini­tia­tive, which was pi­o­neered dur­ing the tenure of for­mer act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob in late 2022, has led to some suc­cess, no­tably the po­lice re­sponse in the af­ter­math of the Sep­tem­ber 2022 Pen­ny­wise Plaza heist in La Ro­maine, in which se­cu­ri­ty guards Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stu­art were killed.

Ja­cob, who at­tend­ed yes­ter­day’s launch, out­lined the main fea­tures be­hind the ac­tive di­rect­ed pa­trol grid, not­ing that in ad­di­tion to foot and mo­bile pa­trols, the strat­e­gy al­so in­cor­po­rat­ed sur­veil­lance from op­er­a­tional com­mand cen­tres to en­sure re­al-time mon­i­tor­ing of streets and neigh­bour­hoods.

He said this in­te­grat­ed ap­proach would en­sure that the po­lice re­sponse was not dis­or­gan­ised in the event of an emer­gency.

Ja­cob said To­ba­go was al­so in­clud­ed in the plan, with Crown Point, Ba­co­let, and the Shir­van Junc­tion - Claude Noel High­way, as points of fo­cus.