New bikes for community police
They are the men and women of the police department who are given the special task of forging a close working relationship with the community they serve. And while they’ve been making those critical connections under less than perfect conditions, this week the officers of the Zone Beat Liason Unit got a helping hand with the purchasing of some much needed wheels: not the four wheel variety, but a fleet of eight bicycles, along with a computer and digital camera. Acting head of the Unit, Sergeant Calbert Flowers, says the equipment is already being put to good use.
Sergeant Calbert Flowers, Ag. Director, Zone Beat Liason Unit
?The bicycles will be used for our officers to go out in the streets of Belize City and meet face to face with the public. We are community policing officers and we gain personal relationships with people in the community.?
Patrick Jones
?Do you think that this will assist you in your work of creating that critical link between the police and the community??
Sergeant Calbert Flowers
?Oh definitely; definitely it will assist us. Prior to this our officers used to go out on their personal bicycles, those who have, and for those who don?t, they use to go out on their foot. So these bicycles will definitely enhance us in doing our jobs better.?
Patrick Jones
?I understand that your department has also raised some money, or gotten some assistance for a child who was injured in an accident.?
Sergeant Calbert Flowers
?Actually we didn?t raise the money. Like I said we develop personal relationship with the people in the community. And when incidents like this happen we go to the family, to the members of the family and try to see how we can assist. So what we did we went to the managers of the circus and we negotiated with them, and the came up with some money to assist this child.?
Flowers says that the Gasga Brothers Circus contributed three hundred dollars to assist ten year old Jevon Mahler who was kicked in the face by one of the circus horses. The bicycles, computer and camera are valued at four thousand five hundred dollars, with funding provided by the Police Department.
