The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will have over 2000 of­fi­cers on pa­trol to­day.

This was con­firmed by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin who ex­pressed TTPS’ readi­ness to en­sure the smooth con­duct of to­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

He al­so warned the pub­lic against il­le­gal acts at polling sta­tions - such as cam­paign­ing, in­flu­enc­ing elec­tors as well as the sale of liquor - which is pun­ish­able by law.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, he said of­fi­cers will al­so fo­cus on spe­cif­ic ar­eas to en­sure peo­ple ar­rive at polling sta­tions and re­turn home safe­ly.

The TTPS will al­so have of­fi­cers on re­serve and will get the as­sis­tance of the De­fence Force.

Ben­jamin said, “I can tell you at this time that all our of­fi­cers are on high alert and we have en­sured that we have all our di­vi­sion­al Com­man­ders briefed as to ex­act­ly what to ex­pect and even how we should go about in terms of hav­ing all pre­ven­ta­tive strate­gies im­ple­ment­ed for the elec­tion pe­ri­od. I can say that we have de­ployed the nec­es­sary strength, and the strength is there to en­sure that we have enough per­sons in the polling sta­tions, and we al­so have of­fi­cers on re­serve as well to mon­i­tor what is hap­pen­ing.

“We will have our task force, IATF (In­ter-Agency Task Force) as well as oth­er emer­gency branch of­fi­cers. Some on stand­by, some will be out as well do­ing tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions and pa­trols, I should say, to en­sure that if there is any in­ten­tion for any dis­rup­tion of any form or any in­tim­i­da­tion tac­tics at all, that will be foiled.”

The act­ing Com­mis­sion­er said par­tic­u­lar fo­cus will be placed on rur­al ar­eas.

“We are look­ing at both the mi­nor­i­ty ar­eas to en­sure that per­sons can feel free and safe go­ing to and from their polling sta­tions and back to their homes. We have al­so en­sured that we have the nec­es­sary lo­gis­tics for our of­fi­cers to en­sure their well-be­ing and we have of­fi­cers reg­u­lar­ly check­ing on these of­fi­cers.”

He as­sured all sys­tems are ready and set for the polls to­day.

“For me, I think all nec­es­sary things are in place to en­sure safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. We just want to ask the pub­lic to co­op­er­ate with the po­lice. If at any time at all you come in­to con­tact with the po­lice, we are just there to en­sure a free flow. We are not go­ing to be do­ing any­thing un­to­ward in terms of road­blocks and all these things.”

He stressed there will be a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to­day to en­sure the process is smooth and no dis­rup­tions will be tol­er­at­ed.

“We have ze­ro tol­er­ance in re­la­tion to any per­son who seeks to de­file the gen­er­al elec­tion of­fences. Un­der Chap­ter 2.1, the whole idea of tam­per­ing with bal­lot box­es, we will be look­ing at that. We want to en­sure that there should be ab­solute­ly no in­flu­enc­ing of elec­tors. No in­tox­i­cat­ing liquor should be sold at that time. Any­thing in terms of il­le­gal vot­ing or un­due in­flu­ence on per­sons, those things we will be look­ing at. We want to en­sure that per­sons should not be wear­ing any loud­speak­ers and ban­ners and flags and so on should not be used around that time. So those are some of the of­fences.

“We want to let per­sons know that fail­ure to obey those of­fences has se­ri­ous con­se­quences. In some cas­es, we have at least one charge on con­vic­tion. You can have at least up to $50,000 and at least five years’ im­pris­on­ment. So, we are go­ing to en­sure that we up­hold the law to the high­est lev­el. And we are ask­ing per­sons to re­al­ly obey these of­fences. We don’t want to see per­sons be­ing charged un­der these things. We are go­ing to have free and fair elec­tions. We don’t ex­pect any­thing less. But we are say­ing that we are go­ing to en­sure that we re­al­ly seek to stick to the law to en­sure fair­ness,” Ben­jamin said.