Dillon: There are ways to treat with kidnapping

“I can tell you categorically that from the time the kidnapping occurred, the police were involved. A crime was committed and therefore the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service was activated through the Anti-Kidnapping Squad, the Cyber Crime Unit, the CID and the Task Force,” Dillon told members of the media yesterday at the opening ceremony for the Maracas, St Joseph Police Station at El Chorro Road.

He was speaking on the kidnapping of businessman Gregory Laing, who was freed on Thursday after relatives paid a $270,000 ransom to the kidnappers.

Laing’s kidnapping was the first kidnapping for ransom for 2017.

For the past three years, Dillon said there were three kidnappings each year.

“While I concerned about any kidnapping whether it’s one or two and three, we will do all that we can through law enforcement and the Ministry of National Security to act as a deterrent to kidnapping as much as we can,” he said.

Dillon said the police did everything they could during the investigation into Laing’s abduction.

“One has to understand in a situation like that you will have a lot of emotions, justifiably so, but there is a certain kind of procedure that has to take place.

Of course the TTPS has a role to play and they cannot do it that in the absence of family members.

There has to be some sort of cooperation and collaboration between law enforcement and family members as much as possible,” he said Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams said the Laing matter was still an active investigation.

“The release of a kidnap victim is extremely important to us, but that does not mean it is the end of an investigation.

A crime has been committed so it is critical for us to pursue the offenders. We did engage all the available resources from the time the information reached the police service and we pursued that investigation “The most important feature in relation to a kidnapping is keeping the kidnap victim alive and available and free from the kidnappers. A dead victim doesn’t help anything, it puts things in worse perspective,” he said.

Asked about photos of a uniformed officer near a marked police vehicle where the officer was captured with two six packs of beer, Williams said the matter will be addressed.

“I haven’t seen the photos, but I heard about them while driving to work this morning.

I can tell you if there are photos of police officers in uniform with marked police vehicles purchasing beers it undermines the Police Service and it is a matter which we will address,” the CoP assured.