Cops flee derelict station

OROPOUCHE villagers and businessmen expressed major fear for their safety yesterday as they watched in disbelief as 21 officers attached to the Oropouche Police Station abandoned the derelict, termite-ridden, rotting building. The officers were relocated to the Fyzabad Police Station. The officers will remain at the Fyzabad Police Station until a temporary structure, whose construction could take as long as three months, is established. The 21 officers were relocated to Fyzabad with the full blessings of the Police Service Welfare Association (PSWA) president, Insp Christopher Holder.

Holder said residents and businessmen had nothing to worry about with the relocation of the officers, saying that a mobile police unit would be set up in Oropouche where persons could lodge reports and seek help from the police. Holder also said that arrangements had been made for regular 24-hour police patrols in the district to ensure that law and order was maintained. Holder explained that the 100-year-old building had been condemned two and a half years ago, but the officers decided to put up with the inhumane and dangerous conditions to serve the people. However, Holder said the officers could not continue working under the unsafe conditions, adding that recently a policeman fell through the rotten flooring of the wooden building and was injured.

He indicated that a request had since been made to the police administration to have a temporary station built in three or four months until Government decides to build a new station for the Oropouche district. Asked whether officers of the La Brea and Guapo police stations, both of which were also condemned, would follow in the footsteps of their Oropouche colleagues, he said he did not know. Apart from these stations, Holder said several other stations as well as the Police Training College at St James Barracks, have also been condemned. Meanwhile, the policemen’s move has sparked anger and concern from the community with several persons saying they were not informed about the officer’s relocation.