Diego Martin residents wary of expanded police powers

Even with the pro­posed in­clu­sion of a manda­to­ry body-cam­era pol­i­cy for po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers as part of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, res­i­dents of Diego Mar­tin say they re­main wary of the strat­e­gy, cit­ing past in­ci­dents of “ag­gres­sive” and “heavy-hand­ed” po­lice tac­tics dur­ing crime-fight­ing op­er­a­tions.

Clause 21 of the bill states that “po­lice of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the De­fence Force, as far as pos­si­ble hav­ing re­gard to avail­able re­sources, [are] to use body-worn cam­eras dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions in closed ar­eas.”

How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Rich Plain Road, Diego Mar­tin, yes­ter­day, some res­i­dents said they were not re­as­sured by the pro­vi­sion, not­ing that any large-scale de­ploy­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers made them un­easy.