Williams admits intelligence gap after Beetham arrests

CARLA BRIDGLAL

Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams acknowledged yesterday that a “major gap” in police intelligence is what allowed the protest by residents from communities along the Beetham Highway to intensify.

“It was a major gap on the (part of) the leaders of the teams,” he told reporters at a media conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair yesterday.

“One such leader acknowledged that there was a lapse in the way they operated without putting in the necessary support mechanism for safety on the highway and other places. That would have been a gap on their part.”

Residents had objected to a police exercise in which two men were arrested and retaliated by blocking the Beetham Highway with debris and firing gunshots, causing hours of gridlock traffic along the main artery into and out of Port of Spain.

Williams said the police have footage from the event and are analysing it with the “clear intention of prosecuting the people identified of committing offences.”

He, along with Chief of Defence Staff Hayden Pritchard and National Security Minister Edmund Dillion, were summoned yesterday by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to witness his address to the nation in response to Thursday’s incident. Rowley endorsed the government’s support of law enforcement services and denounced criminality and the communities that enable them.

Despite the protest, Williams insisted there were plenty positives in the Beetham community, reflected in falling levels of criminality. “There are individuals who are set on crime being their way of existence. In simple language they are criminals. And they continue to commit crimes,” he said. The police, he said, was working with the community, especially the children, to bring about change.

“Preventing crime means we have to change the mindset of the people, starting with the young ones.”