The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is strength­en­ing its re­sponse to home in­va­sions by work­ing more close­ly with com­mu­ni­ties and di­vi­sion­al po­lice units to en­sure a rapid ex­change of in­for­ma­tion dur­ing emer­gen­cies, ac­cord­ing to head of the Home In­va­sion Team (HIT) ACP Richard Smith.

His com­ments came af­ter of­fi­cers of the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion were praised for their swift re­sponse to a brazen day­light home in­va­sion in Curepe on Mon­day, which end­ed with one sus­pect be­ing ar­rest­ed and an­oth­er fa­tal­ly shot dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with po­lice.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the po­lice could not re­al­is­ti­cal­ly re­spond to every re­port of a home in­va­sion, Smith said col­lab­o­ra­tion with res­i­dents re­mained one of the unit’s most ef­fec­tive crime-fight­ing tools. He said build­ing trust with vic­tims had al­ready helped in­ves­ti­ga­tors dis­man­tle crim­i­nal groups, in­clud­ing the “Tall Boots Crew,” which was linked to a se­ries of home in­va­sions across Cen­tral Trinidad ear­li­er this year.