Hun­dreds of hope­ful Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­cruits braved blis­ter­ing heat, traf­fic grid­lock and hours of wait­ing in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day, un­de­terred by the coun­try’s vi­o­lent crime cri­sis as they pur­sued an op­por­tu­ni­ty to join the TTPS.

The turnout for the doc­u­ment vet­ting and ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise at the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Acad­e­my brought traf­fic on Tagore Dri­ve and near­by streets to a crawl, as ap­pli­cants from across South and Cen­tral Trinidad ar­rived, pro­fes­sion­al­ly dressed, with fold­ers con­tain­ing birth cer­tifi­cates, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards, dri­ver’s li­cences and aca­d­e­m­ic cer­tifi­cates.

With park­ing quick­ly ex­haust­ed, many ap­pli­cants were forced to leave their ve­hi­cles some dis­tance away and make the long walk to the acad­e­my un­der a scorch­ing sun. Al­though a light driz­zle fell in­ter­mit­tent­ly, it of­fered lit­tle re­lief as long lines formed out­side the venue.