Get more cops out on patrol

THE EDITOR: Thirteen firearms were recovered and about 500 traffic tickets issued over the Easter weekend. Good work, members of the TTPS. However, is anyone feeling any safer on hearing those statistics?

Of course, these firearms could have been used to injure, assault or kill others, so thank God they have been removed from the public space, hopefully not to return in one form or another.

But wouldn’t it have been more reassuring for the public over that weekend to have seen police vehicles slowly patrolling through their neighbourhood, interacting with the community and observing all that is transpiring?

Public relations officials, we understand, have a job to do, the primary one of which is to retain or regain public confidence. However, giving the society a false sense of security shouldn’t be one of them as it is likely to do more harm than good.

And I don’t think it would be unreasonable to conclude that those 13 firearms are only a drop in the bucket of these criminals' vast arsenal, which I understand are replenished on a weekly or even daily basis.

So again, not wanting to "rain on the parade," but the cosmetics of statistics is being washed off by the reign of crime on our society.

Therefore I am appealing to the hierarchy of the police service, please get more officers out on patrols. A short-term measure can be to augment the E999 Rapid Response unit with part-time or full-time SRPs, together with experienced regular officers to supervise and lead the team.

However, history has shown that all it takes is for one less enthusiastic superior to be assigned to that department and all will collapse in short time.

But if this responsibility is left to the station commander who is then called upon to account for occurrences, including crime and patrols (with the use of GPS), in his district, then the long overdue cultural change in the police service will being to regenerate itself for the benefit of us all.

C MARSHALL

retired police officer