Police take hardline stance on protocol breaches

Police officers will adopt “zero tolerance” towards people who disobey COVID-19 protocols, Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith has warned.

While he acknowledged that “by and large” most Barbadians are following the directives, he said they were still some people breaching the rules.

Commissioner Griffith said: “For the period February 3 to 17, the Force has brought some 20 cases of curfew before the court, which to my mind is 20 too many.

“We’re seeing persons still attempting to open shops and other businesses, we’re seeing persons not wearing their masks but especially not wearing their masks appropriately. We are also seeing instances of persons crowding at the beaches and we are looking closely at that.

“I will want to say at this stage that going forward we will have a zero-tolerance policy in terms of persons breaching the directives. I think we have warned sufficient people already. We work closely with the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit, we work also closely with a team of compliant officers and they have been warning several people.”

Griffith pointed out that the team of compliance officers had reported that more people are not wearing their masks correctly.

“They are saying that consistently they are coming across persons especially not wearing their masks appropriately,” the commissioner said. “They are now going to be calling in far more instances of people breaching protocols and police response will be one of zero tolerance.

“There are some 15 teams of two to three persons going across the country between our divisions performing that function and they have been working well and it’s now for us to take it to that stage where we take in more persons before the court that fail to adhere to the protocols.”

Griffith said that the ranks of the force have been affected by the coronavirus, especially the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in which several detectives had tested positive for
COVID-19.

But the police chief gave the assurance that the situation had not impaired the force’s ability to carry out its duties.

Griffith said: “Even though there are units within the organization that are hampered from time to time as a result of persons being either positive or of the view that they might have been exposed to the virus we operate as one Police Force and so all the resources that are available to us are utilized on a daily basis, so detectives whether they are from the north, Southern Division or Bridgetown Division, all pool and whatever matters are there to be investigated we move out and ensure they are properly investigated so the public is not in any way short-circuited as a consequence of the issues at the CID. We are starting to get some results back at the CID though and so things are looking up in that regard.

“It has been extremely taxing. The men and women of the Royal Barbados Police Force have been going for an extended period now under some gruelling circumstances. However, one thing I must say is that they have been holding out well, they are mature officers and I have to give them kudos for enduring the long haul. Every member of the Force has been giving it their all and so even though it is taxing we will come through, the resilience is there.”

(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)