The Guyana Police Force is soon to electronically monitor its mobile patrols to ensure they perform assigned duties, acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell announced yesterday.
“We will be having a demonstration on how it works soon… and then we hope that not long afterwards, given that the benefits work for us, we will have them in our patrol vehicles so if the police call in to say there are here or there, that it is indeed so,” Brumell told Stabroek News.
He informed that Inter-national Pharmaceutical Agency (IPA), which also supplies security surveillance gadgets, will be the company to give the demonstration.
Concerns have been repeatedly raised about the absence of police patrols in some areas, slow or no response to reports as well as the acceptance of monies from perpetrators to avoid being charged.
Brumell believes that the monitoring of the deployed police coupled with intensified patrols throughout the city can assist in bringing the incidents of robberies down.
Meanwhile, Crime Chief and Deputy Commissioner Seelall Persaud told a news conference yesterday that steps are also being taken to access live images from the numerous close circuit television cameras that have been installed in the city and its environs. “[The] feed is going to an organisation other than the police but there are efforts now in place to give the police a feed… it falls under the Office of the President. I think it is an organisation in the making… we have access by request,” Persaud said, although he did not say if requests will be made to assist police investigations into Monday’s spate of armed attacks.
While Persaud would not give the name of the agency responsible, Stabroek News understands that the footage is currently only being transmitted directly to the Office of the President’s Central Intelligence Unit (CIU). It still remains a mystery who heads and oversees the operations of the agency.
Persaud also said that camera surveillance should be expanded. “The ones here, I think it is a programme that needs to be expanded. It has helped in some incidences of crime, it has helped a whole lot in traffic investigations … there is need to expand it and there is [an] effort right now to have feeds directly to the police so that we can independently research and use what evidence is collected there,” he said.
Monday’s attacks prompted the main opposition APNU to once more call on President Donald Ramotar to revoke Clement Rohee’s appointment as Minister of Home Affairs, while the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) said it was “alarmed and unsettled” at the number of robberies targeting city businesses and businesspersons and urged the police to dedicate additional resources to protecting businesses as part of a strong response.
As he made reference to Monday’s robberies, Brumell said again that businesses can do their part by cutting back on the use of liquid cash, “moving from cash to plastic,” among other security strategies.
Persaud said that that both privately and publicly the police had been urging the Private Sector to speed up the process in having more point-of-sale machines at businesses countrywide. In addition, he said that he had been giving sensitisation talks to the Private Sector on benefits, security-wise, in moving away from large cash transactions. It is a fact that large amounts of cash are magnets for robberies here, he noted, while adding that with the change there was the strong possibility that there would be an increase in fraud cases but the upside was that violence would be eliminated.
Brumell said that while the spate of crimes seemed to indicate an increase to members of the public, they should not be alarmed as statistics for the same period last year show there has been a decline. He added that while the force is always working to have lower numbers, it is revisiting strategies and has made active adjustments that would coincide with the community policing support.
Brumell also used the press conference to reiterate his call for members of the public to assist the police by reporting any suspicious activities they see.
