'Op­er­a­tion Safe City' was launched by Po­lice in Port-of-Spain to re­turn a sense of safe­ty for cit­i­zens in the Cap­i­tal. Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent, Roger Alexan­der, asks the pub­lic to be on the look­out for in­creased po­lice pres­ence in P.O.S from now un­til the Christ­mas sea­son. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease...

One of the de­liv­er­ables for the new Di­vi­sion­al Com­man­der for Port-of-Spain is re­turn­ing a sense of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty to the cap­i­tal city. Those who live, work and tra­verse through the city must do so with­out the fear of im­mi­nent crime and dan­ger.

This from Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc Don­ald Ja­cob as Op­er­a­tion Safe City came in­to ef­fect in the Port-of-Spain area.

Based on the di­rec­tive of the Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er, of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, in­clu­sive of the Port-of-Spain Task Force (POSTF), Port-of-Spain Gang Unit, Cap­i­tal City Pa­trol Unit (CCPU) and the Port-of-Spain City Po­lice con­duct­ed the op­er­a­tion be­tween 2 pm and 7 pm yes­ter­day, Fri­day 16th Sep­tem­ber.

The op­er­a­tion in­clud­ed sev­er­al foot and mo­bile pa­trols par­tic­u­lar­ly fo­cused with­in down­town Port-of-Spain be­tween Nel­son and Fred­er­ick Streets, along In­de­pen­dence Square North and South, where sev­er­al ve­hi­cles and per­sons were stopped and searched, in­clu­sive of known of­fend­ers and their ve­hi­cles. Of­fi­cers paid keen at­ten­tion to the sev­er­al busi­ness places in the area and were on the look­out for sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty in the area.

As a re­sult, 75 ve­hi­cles were searched, 40 Elec­tron­ic Fixed Penal­ty No­tices were is­sued to dri­vers for var­i­ous traf­fic of­fences and 45 Stop and Search forms were com­plet­ed.

ACP Col­lis Hazel co­or­di­nat­ed the op­er­a­tion, which was di­rect­ly su­per­vised by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent (Ag) Roger Alexan­der.

The new Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent said that he was ea­ger to get on the ground as he is aware of the un­ease some per­sons may feel while in the cap­i­tal city. He as­sured that Op­er­a­tion Safe City was not a one-off ex­er­cise but will con­tin­ue and in­ten­si­fy in the weeks ahead lead­ing up to the Christ­mas sea­son. He said the pub­lic can look for­ward to a heavy po­lice pres­ence as of­fi­cers will be pa­trolling in the streets, in the pub­lic spaces and in the busi­ness ar­eas, pro­vid­ing that blan­ket of se­cu­ri­ty and high vis­i­bil­i­ty which is a strong de­ter­rent to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

He end­ed by say­ing that Op­er­a­tion Safe City was just the first sal­vo in the over­all strat­e­gy, more in­tel­li­gence will be gath­ered, op­er­a­tions will in­ten­si­ty, and ar­rests will be made, and the crim­i­nal el­e­ments will un­der­stand that Port of Spain does not be­long to them, but to the peo­ple.