Assistant Commissioner Pompey calls on all to help in crime fight

The Vincentian public has been challenged to do its part to combat the scourge of crime that is laying siege on the society.{{more}}

Filling in for the Commissioner of Police (COP) at the opening ceremony of the Regional Security Systems (RSS) staff and command course at New Haddon Hotel last Monday, November 3, Deputy COP Bertram Pompey said that criminals are not the only ones responsible for the problem of crime.

Pompey suggested that the criminal underworld “which is just a small fraction of the society”, is assisted in their criminal endeavors when law-abiding citizens abdicate their civil responsibilities by not reporting criminal activities and not being willing to testify against these criminals.

“We the people in the society who vastly out number these villains must accept some of the blame for the violence which pervades our societies by our silence, our inaction and indifference in the face of anti-social behaviour…” he said.

He also called on the legislative authority to adjust the laws so that persons found guilty of gun possession crimes will face mandatory and long jail terms.

When he addressed the 19 participants of the month-long course, the RSS’s Acting Security Coordinator Major Horace Kirton said that the course was “timely”, and he was glad to have it back on the RSS’s training calendar.

He explained that similar training programmes had been discontinued over the years and it was good to have the training back on stream, at least for the next two years.

The course, which is funded by the Canadian government, will feature modules on ethics, leadership principles, media relations and border enforcement.

Delworth Heath, Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and Lieutenant Colonel Patrick West of the Guyana Defense Force are the lead instructors of the course.

The RSS formally requested support for the course from the Canadian government in November 2007, and Director of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police International Training Seminar, Don Dupasquier, told the gathering that his country was committed to the cause of the RSS. (KJ)