An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) closed off day 11 of Op­er­a­tion Fes­tive Shield yes­ter­day, with a Christ­mas Car­a­van that be­gan in St James and end­ed in Aranguez.

Speak­ing with re­porters be­fore the pro­ces­sion rolled out of the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James, Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er of Op­er­a­tions Suzette Mar­tin said,

“This road­show is to give pub­lic re­as­sur­ance and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment that we are not here to just en­force the law, but al­so we are here to pro­vide safe­ty tips, to pro­vide care and give to all.”

In­di­cat­ing that car­a­van mem­bers would be hand­ing out ham­pers and presents to chil­dren and fam­i­lies along the route, she said the col­lab­o­ra­tive ven­ture had re­ceived “ex­cel­lent feed­back” from the pub­lic.

“We are hop­ing this will not be a one-off but will be an an­nu­al event for the TTPS go­ing for­ward. All the di­vi­sions are on board, and we are get­ting tremen­dous re­views from this ini­tia­tive,” she said.

She added that the TTPS in­tends to car­ry Op­er­a­tion Fes­tive Shield through to car­ni­val.

“The mul­ti-agency ini­tia­tive with the Prison Ser­vice, the Fire Ser­vice, the De­fence Force, the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, and the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion would con­tin­ue apace,” she added.

The car­a­van at­tract­ed cheers and ap­plause from both pedes­tri­ans and mo­torists as they passed through ar­eas, in­clud­ing Beetham, Mor­vant, Laven­tille, San Juan, Barataria, Mt Lam­bert, Tu­na­puna, Bon Air, Ari­ma, Tumpuna, Mal­abar, Pi­ar­co, Gold­en Grove, Ca­roni, St He­le­na, Cunu­pia and Aranguez.

The high­ly vis­i­ble road­show fea­tured of­fi­cers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from sev­er­al state agen­cies en­gag­ing com­mu­ni­ties along the route – shar­ing safe­ty mes­sages and presents, as well as en­cour­ag­ing year-round com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships fos­ter­ing trust be­tween the po­lice and the pub­lic.

Among the safe­ty tips Mar­tin of­fered were: “Be aware of your sur­round­ings, and please, when you go out, man­age the amount of cash that you have in your pos­ses­sion. We have cards, bank cards that can be used any and every­where, so we are ask­ing per­sons to lim­it your cash, lim­it your jew­ellery, and again, be aware of your sur­round­ings.”

She al­so urged peo­ple not to drink and dri­ve, warn­ing that both the po­lice and li­cens­ing of­fi­cials would be out mon­i­tor­ing and en­forc­ing the law dur­ing this fes­tive pe­ri­od.