Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Her­bert Vol­ney wants the po­lice to rid the streets of va­grants, not "shake down young peo­ple for mar­i­jua­na." He made the com­ments in an in­ter­view at his Jus­tice Min­istry of­fice, Tow­er C, Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

"They need to act on it, whether they dirty them­selves or they dirty their ve­hi­cles in the process. They have to act on it now," Vol­ney in­sist­ed. He said the home­less peo­ple who live on the streets of Port-of-Spain were mov­ing to St Joseph. "And I think it is time for the po­lice to ex­e­cute the law-not the per­son, the law," Vol­ney said.

This was an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to the po­lice killing last week of one of Vol­ney's con­stituents, At­i­ba Dun­can of Mt D'Or. Vol­ney con­demned the po­lice ac­tion af­ter Dun­can's friends and rel­a­tives protest­ed against the shoot­ing for sev­er­al days. Vol­ney said va­grants posed a dan­ger to women and oth­ers.

And he ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment had the will to do what the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens want done. Vol­ney, a for­mer High Court judge, said he will com­mend the po­lice when they ini­ti­ate such ac­tion.