Rowley calls in cops

Yesterday, during the weekly Police Service COMPSTAT meeting, Acting Police Commissioner Harold Phillip revealed to Heads of the three divisions that they are to attend a meeting with the Prime Minister and his team. The senior officers to meet with Rowley at the meeting which starts at 9 am are Snr Supt Basdeo Ramdhanie of Western Division; Snr Supt Simboonath Rajkumar of Northern Division and Snr Supt John Trim of Eastern Division. An Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) is scheduled to attend this meeting.

The senior officers were told to prepare all of their statistics and information on whatever anti-crime initiatives which they have been deploying in the fight against crime in their respective divisions. The officers will also present to the Prime Minister - who is the chairman of the National Security Council - a breakdown of the amount of illegal arms and ammunition seized in these three divisions as well as the homicide figure in the division the officers control. A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Rowley summoned all heads of the nine police divisions (Tobago, Northern, North-Eastern, Western, Port-of-Spain, Southern, South-Western, Central and Eastern) as well as heads of Sections and the Executive of the Police Service to a meeting at the Diplomatic Centre, where he mandated the Police Service to come up with new strategies to deal with crime. The PM stated there should be no excuses by the police in their failure to reduce crime.

He also urged the divisional heads to be more proactive and called on each of them to be responsible for their divisions in decreasing crime. Following that meeting, the Prime Minister made a pledge to provide further financial support to the Police Service in the fight against crime. Newsday understands that this support will include acquisition of spy equipment to carry out surveillance. It is further understood that divisional heads will from time to time, be called in to account personally to the Prime Minister.

One of the most pressing concerns by citizens in the first year of the PNM administration has been crime and in particular murders.

The Prime Minister has already indicated that he and his government will do what is necessary to deal with the crime situation and to allay the fears of citizens. Yesterday, senior police officers said that they have no problem with the move by the Prime Minister to call for the crime fight to be widened