De­spite some im­prove­ment in the de­tec­tion rate in the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion dis­trict, res­i­dents at a town hall meet­ing have raised con­cerns over what they de­scribed as poor re­sponse times, vis­i­bil­i­ty and the at­ti­tudes of some of­fi­cers as­signed to their com­mu­ni­ty.

The is­sues were dis­cussed at a po­lice town hall meet­ing at the Mal­oney Re­gion­al Com­plex on Wednes­day evening, as of­fi­cers met with res­i­dents in a bid to forge clos­er ties with the neigh­bour­hood.

One res­i­dent, a busi­ness own­er at the Mal­oney Mall, told of­fi­cers that he was dis­ap­point­ed that an in­ci­dent at the fa­cil­i­ty was re­port­ed to po­lice, but no of­fi­cers ever ar­rived at the scene to fol­low up on the mat­ter.

In re­sponse, Ag In­sp Lester Smith apol­o­gised for the non-re­sponse to the mat­ter, not­ing that such poor per­for­mance was some­thing tak­en very se­ri­ous­ly by the TTPS.

How­ev­er, the head of the North­ern Di­vi­sion, North Snr Supt Sher­ma May­nard-Wil­son, went fur­ther, as she promised a bet­ter qual­i­ty of ser­vice from the po­lice in the com­mu­ni­ty.

May­nard-Wil­son, who was as­signed as head of the di­vi­sion lit­tle over a year ago, said a more ef­fi­cient re­sponse and trans­paren­cy with the pub­lic were crit­i­cal for op­er­a­tional suc­cess.

“No re­sponse is a re­sponse, but no re­sponse doesn’t help the or­gan­i­sa­tion in terms of our im­age, and it cer­tain­ly doesn’t help the com­mu­ni­ty we’re ex­pect­ed to part­ner with.

“I don’t want you to go away think­ing this is a talk shop... this Snr Supt doesn’t have op­por­tu­ni­ties for a talk shop; there are too many things to get done.”

In ad­di­tion to re­sponse times, is­sues re­lat­ing to po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty were al­so raised, as some res­i­dents have called for more po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty through pa­trols and ex­er­cis­es in parts of Mal­oney.

How­ev­er, one res­i­dent, iden­ti­fied as Shan­ice, con­tend­ed that she felt there were “too many” road ex­er­cis­es, which posed an in­con­ve­nience to dri­vers and trav­ellers in the area.

In her re­sponse, May­nard-Wil­son not­ed that the dis­par­i­ty in views over po­lice pres­ence was part of the chal­lenge in sat­is­fy­ing the pub­lic but main­tained that traf­fic ex­er­cis­es were a crit­i­cal part of crime sup­pres­sion. She main­tained that this was need­ed to sti­fle the flow of crim­i­nals who may be trans­port­ing weapons.

“I’m telling you it’s not fly­ing past in a drone. The move­ment of guns and drugs are on the road­way, and if the po­lice take a po­si­tion to re­duce the num­ber of en­gage­ments, who is go­ing to keep the peo­ple safe that are sit­ting here to­day?

“So I un­der­stand the need for the bal­ance, but the po­lice, as pro­fes­sion­al as we can be, will re­main the en­forcers of the law, and I have en­cour­aged my team that we will do it pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

“We’re go­ing to en­gage you and up­hold the law and do it right.”

One res­i­dent, Bet­ty-Ann Sawyer, said that she was pleased with the fre­quen­cy of po­lice pa­trols in her com­mu­ni­ty of Red Hill, D’Abadie. How­ev­er, she com­plained that the re­sponse of one of­fi­cer to an in­ci­dent she sought help with was dis­cour­ag­ing and urged them to be more re­cep­tive to the pub­lic.

“Be­cause you go to talk, and some of them have their prob­lems from home... but you have to lis­ten.

“If the po­lice put out some­thing that some­one is want­ed and you’re just go­ing to talk... these things make peo­ple not want to tell the po­lice any­thing, be­cause the ban­dits and them know every­thing that’s go­ing on.”

In re­sponse, May­nard-Wil­son said ef­forts were un­der­way to re­vamp the qual­i­ty of cus­tomer ser­vice for of­fi­cers at the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion and wel­comed feed­back from the pub­lic, whether good or bad.

She al­so ad­vised per­sons who may not re­ceive a favourable re­sponse to speak di­rect­ly with the act­ing Sgt An­dre For­ge­nie of the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion.

“Please make sure if you’re not get­ting feed­back on your mat­ter, get to the of­fice of the Sergeant. The Sergeant has to ac­count, and there­fore when you reach to him, he knows what he has to do.

“We want to know that if we do some­thing that is right, you can tell us, and if we do some­thing that’s wrong, you can tell us.”

Dur­ing his ad­dress, act­ing Sgt Clin­ton Mar­cano of the Mal­oney CID not­ed that while de­tec­tion rates have im­proved, there have been is­sues re­lat­ing to prop­er­ty crime, which in­cludes thefts and lar­ce­nies.

He al­so urged res­i­dents to prop­er­ly lock their doors and win­dows to pre­vent these in­ci­dents.