Senior cops ‘up in arms’ over SRPs

Senior police officers in all police divisions are questioning the hurried recruitment process, which was used in hiring 1,000 persons to assist regular police officers in the fight against crime. Police officers complained yesterday that most of the persons chosen for the job could not write proper English, read or spell. At Traffic Branch, many of the Special Reserve Constables were found to be incapable of spelling and several traffic tickets issued by them contained wrong information and bad spelling. In Central Division, one of the Srps was charged with larceny of a bottle of perfume, while last week at Traffic Branch, another SRP was charged with nine counts of fraud.

The 1,000 Srps who were hired as part of the initiative to assist police officers in fighting crime, were sent to various divisions to do patrols and assist with charge room duties. Senior officers complained yesterday that while they welcomed the added manpower, they are now faced with a situation where some of the Srps simply could not be sent out to do duties. “This move to bring in additional manpower without doing proper checks has resulted in us being embarrassed in court, because people are being charged under the wrong sections,” said a senior officer yesterday. Coupled with that, officers who were recalled from their leave to do patrols in “hot spot” crime areas, complained yesterday that most of the newly acquired vehicles which were handed over recently to do patrols are simply not working.

The CID officers in other divisions said yesterday that they were given firm instructions that the new vehicles are only to be used to patrol “hot spot” areas. “Imagine, we have no vehicles to respond to crime and the vehicles are parked in front of our eyes, and yet we cannot use those vehicles, because of the instructions by Police Commissioner Trevor Paul,” said one officer yesterday.