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Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says the State of Emer­gency is not to be thanked for the re­duc­tion in crime in Port-of-Spain. Rather, he says the as­tute lead­er­ship of the po­lice of­fi­cers in the di­vi­sion have brought the re­sul­tant de­cline.

Speak­ing at the open­ing of a City Po­lice Post on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro said last year at this time, there were 400 rob­beries in the cap­i­tal. This year, he said, the fig­ure stands at 258. He said the re­duc­tion was due to the lead­er­ship of ACP Garvin Hen­ry and Snr Supt Ray­mond Thom, who worked with the City Po­lice in ad­dress­ing crime.

“It’s a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort that has kept crime down. And I know they would say, ‘Oh, we’re in a SoE.’ Any­body here feels that they’re in a SoE? The Gov­ern­ment could agree to hold ten SoEs from now till thy king­dom come, but if it is that the per­sons in uni­form around here, from the last joined re­cruit to the most se­nior, de­cide to sit in an of­fice and not do any­thing, you think crime would have been down? It’ll just be crime dur­ing an SoE. That would ben­e­fit no one,” he said.