On Wednesday night, I sat there and I looked at the TV6 nightly news in utter amazement and disgust – over 200 police officers and soldiers had descended on the Beetham Gardens area and had "locked" it down for more than four hours but had found no arms and just a few rounds of ammunition. Yet, less than an hour after the completion of that exercise (in futility), a young man described as a police informant, is gunned down in cold blood – with the same guns the police couldn't find!

Later I heard about murder of a Laventille man. A family is now left in mourning after another apparently senseless killing,

Senior police officers are constantly seen on television pleading for the public to come forward with information on crime, yet, when they do, many "informants" (anyone who is seen to be or is suspected of talking to the police and sometimes the media) are murdered by the very criminals on whom the authorities seek information.

Are we truly serious about fighting crime? In this, the 21st century, do we intend to disrupt the billion-dollar business of crime with the archaic tactics of sniffer dogs and cursory manual searches? Those in crime have their businesses to protect and they protect them with savagery. Those in charge of our national security seem to lack the will or skill to beat back the assaults of the criminally-minded few. They fail to engender in the majority of the national community a sense of peace and safety.

Our national security machinery needs to move into the 21st century. The officials need to develop the will to fight crime at all levels in our society. They need to be properly trained in the technology of 21st century policing. They need to develop the knowledge and skills needed to take the fight to the criminals everywhere. There must be no safe haven for crime!

In T&T, crime does pay – and it pays well! Our national security mechanism needs to find and seize the proceeds of the criminal enterprises that seem to fund so many aspects of our economy. They need to make sure that the costs of crime far outweigh the benefits.

The good people of Trinidad and Tobago are in a state of undeclared war with the criminal elements! This is a war that we can ill-afford to lose, but nonetheless, we are losing! The powers that be must empower us to join the fight by making it safe for each and every one of us to speak out and even fight back when we encounter this monster.

Those who speak out or fight must know that they have the full force of the State behind them – they must be protected at all cost. This is just one of the ways we can turn the tide and start winning the war against this insidious foe!

Nigel Hercules

via e-mail