Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) Deryck Richard­son ex­pects the man­pow­er short­age at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port to be ad­dressed by year-end. He said it was one of the is­sues that con­tributed to se­cu­ri­ty gaps at the air­port.

Se­cu­ri­ty at the air­port was in­creased af­ter Pi­ta Pit was robbed last Fri­day night.

Around 9.30 pm, two men, one armed with a gun, robbed the fe­male work­ers of valu­ables and the fast-food out­let of $2,500.

The rob­bery oc­curred two months af­ter Arkim Quash, 38, was mur­dered at the air­port min­utes af­ter he re­turned home on April 19.

“One of the is­sues that we have been rais­ing over the years, which was crit­i­cal to the se­cu­ri­ty of the air­port, would have been the is­sue of man­pow­er,” Richard­son said.

He said es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers haven’t been re­cruit­ed for the air­port since 2015. To make up for the man­pow­er short­age traf­fic war­dens have been as­signed to deal with il­le­gal park­ing out­side the air­port and con­tract work­ers con­duct screen­ings.

Richard­son said these mea­sures are not a fix but al­low es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers to fo­cus on oth­er se­cu­ri­ty is­sues.

He added that an ad­ver­tise­ment to re­cruit more es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers was a wel­come sign.

“There are oth­er is­sues in the air­port con­cern­ing se­cu­ri­ty which we know we can work through with the man­age­ment but some of those is­sues, of course, would not be made pub­lic.

“Now that the fo­cus is on the air­port and the se­cu­ri­ty of the air­port, the in­volve­ment of the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, which we as the es­tate po­lice falls un­der and the new batch­es that are sup­posed to come in, much of the is­sues con­cern­ing the se­cu­ri­ty of the air­port could be ad­dressed in due course,” he said.

“I would hes­i­tate to add, by the end of this year they should see more es­tate po­lice on the ground, mak­ing sure that the air­port is se­cure for all users.”

At the air­port yes­ter­day, uni­formed and non-uni­formed es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers were on du­ty. While there was a promise in in­creased po­lice pa­trols, no po­lice of­fi­cers were seen.

Em­ploy­ees at Pi­ta Pit said they felt un­easy, de­spite the promis­es of in­creased se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

Of­fi­cials at the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice met yes­ter­day but de­tails of the meet­ing were not dis­closed up to press time.