Acting CoP: It is a serious crime

UPDATE:

ACTING Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams says there was no special treatment in the recovery of the stolen phone belonging to Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s son and the police involved should be praised for excellent work rather than attacked.
He was speaking with Newsday at the Parliament building in Port of Spain before appearing before the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee and responding to social media criticisms of the police after the recovery of Adrian Imbert’s phone, with some saying resources were not similarly used for crimes against them, or for murder cases such as the recent Chaguaramas shootings.
Williams said: “I would say it is a bit sad that the media has been carrying a story around about the police and the extensive use of resources to pursue a cellphone for the son of Minister Colm Imbert. Now, it’s not about pursuing a cellphone. It’s a robbery, a crime, a serious crime which has been committed and the officers of Port of Spain Division would have done exactly what they are mandated to do – pursue the investigation with a clear intention of solving it, just as any other investigation.”
“Quite surprisingly, I am hearing questions within the domain of social media: ‘How come the police have put so much resources?’ And ‘Why the speed behind this investigation?’” Williams said every investigation is guided by “solvability factors” and if there are some clear indications which could lead to the solving of a crime, the police would pursue them vigorously.
He said the officers at Port of Spain Division were driven to increase their detection rate.
“And they are working hard, and they need to be treated fairly by the comments of people out there in social media.” He said last year the division recorded a 17.4 per cent detection rate, which was “abysmal,” but have been building efforts to increase the rate for 2018.
“What the public should know is that they have put in so much effort that for the first time they are at 36 per cent detection rate in Port of Spain Division. Nobody is speaking about that.”
Williams said this was the first time in a long time or possibly ever that the division had achieved such a detection rate. He said an excellent amount of work was being done for no recognition and for people to highlight one incident.
“There are many cases of excellent work by the officers. And they want to continue doing excellent work. “But when you have reporting like this, it’s taking away from encouraging to demotivating officers, because they have not put their effort because it is a minister’s son; they put the effort because they have certain lead(s), because they have CCTV feed and they could identify the persons involved, and they move on the thing.”

ORIGINAL STORY:

ACTING Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams says there was no special treatment in the recovery of the stolen phone belonging to Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s son and the police involved should be praised for excellent work rather than attacked.

He was speaking with Newsday at the Parliament building in Port of Spain before appearing before the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee and responding to social media criticisms of the police after the recovery of Adrian Imbert’s phone, with some saying resources were not similarly used for crimes against them, or for murder cases such as the recent Chaguaramas shootings.

Williams said: “I would say it is a bit sad that the media has been carrying a story around about the police and the extensive use of resources to pursue a cellphone for the son of Minister Colm Imbert. Now, it’s not about pursuing a cellphone. It’s a robbery, a crime, a serious crime which has been committed and the officers of Port of Spain Division would have done exactly what they are mandated to do – pursue the investigation with a clear intention of solving it, just as any other investigation.”