TTUTA boss says teachers uneasy at checkpoint searches

T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe says while he is not op­posed to se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives aimed at en­hanc­ing pub­lic safe­ty, the au­thor­i­ties must com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter with teach­ing staff to pre­vent any un­nec­es­sary anx­i­ety and un­ease, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing search­es at the check­points.

He made the call af­ter vis­it­ing the Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and the Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre yes­ter­day, where he said sev­er­al teach­ers were un­set­tled by the large-scale mo­bil­i­sa­tion of po­lice and sol­diers fol­low­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty as a closed area un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act.

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He point­ed out that the po­lice were well with­in their right to take ac­tion to pre­vent an uptick in vi­o­lent crime in the com­mu­ni­ty, but felt the of­fi­cers should have di­rect­ly en­gaged with teach­ers, sug­gest­ing it would have been easy to do so, cit­ing the lo­ca­tion of the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion across the street from both schools on Flamin­go Boule­vard.