Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

South­ern Di­vi­sion women po­lice are send­ing a clear mes­sage to the pub­lic that they are a force to be reck­oned with and are com­mit­ted to curb­ing crime while keep­ing com­mu­ni­ties safe.

Act­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent Lystra Bridge­lal gave the as­sur­ance yes­ter­day, dur­ing a well­ness walk and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties held at Palmiste Park in San Fer­nan­do in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, cel­e­brat­ed on March 8. The event comes at a time when con­cerns have been raised about crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in San Fer­nan­do.

Just ear­li­er this week, the Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce ex­pressed con­cern about the in­crease in day­light rob­beries in and around High Street, es­pe­cial­ly while the coun­try re­mains un­der a State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Bridge­lal, how­ev­er, as­sured that the South­ern Di­vi­sion has im­ple­ment­ed sev­er­al ini­tia­tives un­der the SoE aimed at re­duc­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“We have had sev­er­al ini­tia­tives based on the SoE. We have had reg­u­lar pa­trols and on­go­ing ex­er­cis­es 24/07, and we con­tin­ue to do so in terms of a co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort in all as­pects and all ar­eas in the South­ern Di­vi­sion to curb crime, and we have been get­ting some great re­sults,” Bridge­lal said.

She added that of­fi­cers have al­so been strate­gi­cal­ly de­ployed across the di­vi­sion.

“We are con­tin­u­ing with our pa­trols, and we have placed po­lice of­fi­cers in strate­gic ar­eas in re­sponse to crime. We are re­spond­ing in an im­me­di­ate sense to crime to ar­rest per­pe­tra­tors and bring them to court in ac­cor­dance with the law.”

She ex­plained that the lo­ca­tion for the event was in­ten­tion­al­ly cho­sen to demon­strate the po­lice pres­ence and sup­port for the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Our women from the South­ern Di­vi­sion have un­der­tak­en to choose this lo­ca­tion, and we are in sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty and the pub­lic. We are show­ing that through our force, we are a pow­er to reck­on with and by ex­ten­sion, all of the per­sons in the South­ern Di­vi­sion un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Snr Supt Si­mon. So, we are send­ing that mes­sage out to the pub­lic that we are here to pro­tect the pub­lic and en­force that as­pect of it in terms of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.”

Bridge­lal al­so high­light­ed the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing a bal­ance be­tween work and per­son­al well-be­ing.

“We have been work­ing hard in the South­ern Di­vi­sion, and we con­tin­ue to do so. We took time off to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to have this lit­tle re­lax­ation and have a lit­tle fun in be­tween our busy, hec­tic work sched­ule.” The event in­clud­ed a well­ness walk, aer­o­bic ex­er­cis­es and a trea­sure hunt.