RALPH BAN­WARIE

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Rur­al com­mu­ni­ties such as Matu­ra and To­co can no longer as­sume they are im­mune from crime be­cause crim­i­nals are adapt­ing and tar­get­ing vul­ner­a­ble coastal ar­eas, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent has warned.

Speak­ing dur­ing a town meet­ing host­ed by the at Plaza Del Es­tate along the To­co Main Road on Thurs­day night, Pa­ponette said polic­ing strate­gies in the East­ern Di­vi­sion were chang­ing in re­sponse to evolv­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“Not be­cause crime is spi­ralling out of con­trol, not be­cause com­mu­ni­ties have col­lapsed, but be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go is chang­ing. Crim­i­nals are chang­ing, vi­o­lence is chang­ing and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties can no longer as­sume they are too re­mote, too qui­et or too peace­ful to be­come tar­gets. That il­lu­sion is gone,” he said.

Pa­ponette said com­mu­ni­ties such as Matu­ra, Matelot, Grand Riv­iere and the north-east­ern cor­ri­dor were once viewed as iso­lat­ed from the prob­lems af­fect­ing ur­ban ar­eas, but crim­i­nals were now study­ing coastal com­mu­ni­ties for op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Crim­i­nals do not re­spect ge­og­ra­phy. They study op­por­tu­ni­ties, they study move­ments, they study vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, they study si­lence and in­creas­ing­ly they are study­ing coastal com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

He said coast­lines pro­vid­ed move­ment, fish­ing de­pots pro­vid­ed cov­er, re­mote roads al­lowed con­ceal­ment, poor light­ing cre­at­ed anonymi­ty and sparse pop­u­la­tions re­duced the like­li­hood of wit­ness­es.

“And when com­mu­ni­ties be­come di­vid­ed or dis­en­gaged, crim­i­nals be­lieve they can qui­et­ly es­tab­lish in­flu­ence be­fore any­one no­tices,” he added.

Pa­ponette said the East­ern Di­vi­sion had de­lib­er­ate­ly changed its op­er­a­tional phi­los­o­phy and was now fo­cused on pre­vent­ing crim­i­nal net­works from es­tab­lish­ing them­selves in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

“We are no longer polic­ing on­ly for what crime is, we are polic­ing for what crime can be­come,” he said.

Res­i­dents at­tend­ing the meet­ing raised con­cerns in­clud­ing prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, speed­ing ve­hi­cles, the lack of speed humps, il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and in­suf­fi­cient po­lice pa­trols.

De­spite the com­plaints, sev­er­al res­i­dents com­mend­ed Sgt Hazel and of­fi­cers at­tached to the dis­trict for their work de­spite lim­it­ed re­sources. Some res­i­dents de­scribed Hazel as the best sergeant they had ex­pe­ri­enced in Matu­ra.

Act­ing prin­ci­pal of Do­lores Richards al­so praised of­fi­cers for their in­ter­ven­tion at the school, say­ing dis­ci­pline among stu­dents had im­proved.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er said it was un­usu­al to hear a com­mu­ni­ty speak­ing pos­i­tive­ly about po­lice of­fi­cers.

“I was speak­ing with Snr Supt Pa­ponette a while ago about trans­fer­ring Sgt Hazel,” Singh joked.

Singh al­so warned about the in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia, gangs and mu­sic on young peo­ple, say­ing com­mu­ni­ties need­ed to play a greater role in shap­ing chil­dren’s be­hav­iour.

“You can­not want to smoke weed and tell your child not to do it. You can­not cuss your neigh­bour and tell your child do not do it. Chil­dren learn what they live,” he said.

He said schools, youth clubs and sta­tion coun­cils re­mained im­por­tant in pre­vent­ing crim­i­nal be­hav­iour be­fore it es­ca­lat­ed.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, Singh sug­gest­ed farm­ers work to­geth­er to pur­chase drones to mon­i­tor crops and as­sist po­lice in iden­ti­fy­ing thieves.

He al­so said in­for­ma­tion on le­gal firearms and cit­i­zen’s ar­rests would be ad­dressed dur­ing an­oth­er ses­sion.