BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

You may by now have gleaned from the content and title of this column that I’m no PNM apologist, nor for that matter am I in the habit of making excuses for anyone, so it’s going to sound strange that I suggest today that we — you, me, all of us — can’t just go on and on condemning the Government’s and police’s crime fighting initiatives, that is, not unless we are truly prepared to adopt some anti-crime measures of our own. Neither the police nor the PNM are denying anymore, what we already know; the management of the police service is a relic, which has left law enforcement and thus, Trinidad and Tobago, at the mercy of merciless criminals. “We may not have adjusted in an efficient and timely manner to the environment in which we are operating,” PNM Minister of National Security Martin Joseph conceded Thursday.

“This is the reason why we literally find ourselves in a position where we have to play catch-up because that’s what we have to do.” Joseph’s announcement is no news. We can see that the State is behind in the fight against crime.  We live with the consequences of this backwardness everyday. But what about the State’s citizens? Have we entirely adapted to the criminal environment in which we are living? Are we doing our part to help the police and by this hackneyed question, I don’t mean are we picking up the phone and calling Crime Stoppers. I mean rather, are we on our guard, enough? Or are we as slow in this duel with TT’s felons as we accuse the Government and police of being? The more I read of the news the more I’m beginning to fear that we are as behind as the police and Government in the crime battle; that we too, have not adjusted sufficiently to the new TT setting. Thursday’s kidnapping of the little three-year-old Saada Singh from her pre-school in Vistabella was just the worst example of our slowness to adapt to the frightening times. The day’s tragic events showed that we are simply not alert enough, that we are still, some of us, prepared to be sitting ducks, trusting, carefree, na?ve.

If not, then how do we explain the senseless act of the teacher at the Giselle Montessori School in Vistabella? How do we come to grips with her acceptance of the word of an unknown woman that she was there on the instructions of little Saada’s parents and her allowing this woman to walk out of the pre-school with the child? Unless we use adjectives such as “irresponsible” as Assistant Commissioner of Police (South) Dennis Graham did, or “stupid,” “inexperienced” and “complicit” as many angry citizens are doing, we cannot fathom how a teacher living on the “island of kidnapping” could hand over a child on the say so of a strange woman in of all things, a black and gold wig. By the way, how do we know the kidnapper was wearing a wig? Did the teacher recognise it to be one? Did the wig and its colours not make her even more suspicious of the mysterious woman who wanted to take Saada? Why didn’t she verify the woman’s story, particularly if as reports suggest, this was the first occasion that someone other than the little girl’s parents went to get her? The questions we can pose to the pre-school teacher are endless. The school also has some explaining to do about its guidelines or policies for the collection of the tots in its care, some of whom are obviously from well-heeled families. The most obvious question is: does Giselle Montessori train its staff and is this training in line with the new dangers we face in this society?

Long before kidnappings became the latest criminal horror, teachers, particularly at pre-schools, because of custody battles and sexual predators, already had to be careful about whom they permitted children to leave these schools with. In these terrible kidnapping days, many schools particularly high-risk ones, demand a letter from parents if transport arrangements for their children are going to be varied on any given day. Such precautions are just common sense for they protect both the child and the school. Yet the teacher at Giselle’s gave Saada to a woman in a wig! One thoughtless minute last week by this teacher and the lives of a family were turned upside down and inside out. It is a lesson to all that we cannot, any of us, afford a careless second.  TT’s criminals are professionals and we have to be on the ball if we don’t want to hand ourselves over to them on a platter, if we don’t want to further burden a police force we know to be weighed down by its structure and management.

We have to be alert for our own good and for the protection of our families, our friends, our neighbours, our colleagues. We cannot simply continue to criticise the police and the Government while we wait for reform. We know we cannot rely on them alone to save us. We have to use our own wits too, in our defence. We cannot be na?ve. We really have no option, but to join the police and Government in their efforts to play catch up with the criminals. If we do not we are just making it easy for the kidnappers, murderers, rapists, bandits, to catch us. If we do not start doing our part in the fight against crime, we will find ourselves in the unenviable position of all the people involved in Thursday’s tragedy in southern Trinidad. We will be the parents, waiting to hear if our daughter is alive or dead; we will be Saada and we don’t even want to imagine what that must be like. Or we will be the teacher in Vistabella forever having to live with the consequences of one moment of imprudence. Is this what we really want? Isn’t it time for us to do more than just condemn the Government and police? Whatever happened to the old maxim of “better safe than sorry”?