New crime plan for Tobago

The Tobago police will be implementing a new crime fighting plan for the island that includes greater attention to persons charged with firearm offices, increased police patrols and surveillance and a confidential hotline to report crimes.

So announced Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles, who said on Wednesday that he had met with representatives of the Tobago Division of the TT Police Service and an agreement has been arrived at to deal with rising crime on the island.

Charles announcement comes on the heels of last Saturday’s murder of barber Ramos Carmona, 28, the island’s 11th murder crime for 2017.

Police officers found Carmona with gunshot wounds to his back, slumped in the front seat of a white Mitsubishi Lancer car along Windward Road, Mt St George, last Saturday.

On Wednesday, speaking at the post Executive Council media briefing at the Administrative Complex in Calder Hall, Charles, who said he knew Carmona, described him as a young man who “went astray.”

On the crime plan, he said:

“We have agreed that increased attention will be placed on persons involved with firearm offences because the majority of the murders in Tobago for the year so far would have been committed by persons with firearms.

“Surveillances will be set up at the Scarborough Port. There are additional things we need to do at the port and we have given them (police) the commitment that we would work with them to ensure that those matters are resolved as quickly as possible.”

He did not give details of what needed to be dealt with at the port.

Charles a Tobago crime hotline service was also discussed, “for confidential interaction between residents and the police and therefore we are looking at the possibility of creating our own crime stoppers hotline.”

“We feel that this may have a greater effect than having to use the hotline based in Trinidad,” he added.

Charles said Tobago Police reported a modest increase in crime detection in Tobago from 30 percent to 35 percent, describing that as “a move in the right direction.”

He said discussions also focussed on the need for regular interaction among the Tobago media, the public and the Tobago police.

“The media will be provided with the opportunity to engage the police directly in terms of the level of accountability. To begin, they (police) shall have once a forthright press conferences, so that the public will be aware of the actions taken as well as the results. I think this information is necessary so that the right perception of the work of the police will be the one that is generated.

“That can also generate the level of confidence required so that between the police and the citizenry, information can flow to facility the detection and solving of crime,” he said.

Charles also spoke about an initiative to extend police youth clubs to secondary schools on the island, with the first members being the 80 students who scored 30 percent and below in the 2017 Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) at Signal Hill and Roxborough Secondary School.

“I want to see these students succeed as crime is a multi-dimensional issue and therefore it cannot be tackled only from single orientation. “Even as we have the element of the police we also need to use the other avenues of the social and education so that we provide opportunities preventing them (students) from antisocial behaviours,” he said.

Charles also reminded Tobagonians that the responsibility for crime prevention lies with them.

“One of the things that came out of that conversation (with the police) is when roadblocks are set up, some of the public alert our friends. We have to understand that the police can’t do it alone. As much as it is the police responsibility, the face of crime has changed in this country,” he said.