Stop police publicity TV shows

THE EDITOR: I recommend that Police Commissioner Stephen Williams stop the weekly police media briefings and remove the Beyond The Tape television programme and find something better for the officers involved to do. What is the point of having these when all the officers who appear on them talk big and give “assurances” and false hopes to the public? Nothing ever comes out of all their “tough talk.”

Two days after Christmas I called the West End Police Station in Diego Martin to complain about the deafening rocket-like noises that have been bombarding my area from Boxing Day and which would continue into the wee morning hours.

The police never responded despite the television talk about the police enforcing the law regarding firecrackers and other noise-making devices.

The booming continued through to New Year’s and the day after (I am writing this on January 2). I never expected the police to do anything because they have done nothing about the several complaints made about the loud, deafening music played in motor cars that traverse the Covigne area by day and night.

Here is the classic, though: A resident who called the West End station at mid-morning on the day after New Year’s to complain about the deafening fireworks being sent off – and of the other ear-splitting noises in her area of Diego Martin – was shocked at the response she got from the police officer who took her call.

The only thing that policeman could tell his caller was: “Maybe the people who are setting the fireworks off have excess material and they are just using it up.”

I guess we should understand now why the murder rate in this country is so high. According to the logic of that policeman at West End, it would mean that the gunmen in the society have excess firepower and they have to use it, so that would be the reason for all the shootings and killings in the country.

Please, Mr Commissioner: are you and your officers really serious about curbing crime in this country? Is this what the senior officers mean when they tell us on television that they will “uphold the law?”

On another note: Are they upholding the traffic laws on the highways and byways when one can drive from Port of Spain to San Fernando over the recent holidays and not see evidence of the police being on duty to curb the speedsters who find it necessary to drive way in excess of 100 kilometres per hour limit even though they have been given licence to do a further 20 km per hour above the old speed?

CLYDE ALPHONSO, Diego Martin