The Meet And Greet Is Back Following Hiatus

If you haven’t seen any Police meet and greets in your area in recent weeks, don’t worry the community policy programme hasn’t been cut. As a matter of fact, it fully resumed on Wednesday in the St. Martin’s area. ACP Chester Williams explained to the media that the cops who go around the neighborhood were posted at schools during the strike. But those officers will get a nice boost with seven new vehicles that will help them on their patrols. During the meet and greet on Wednesday, ACP Chester Williams briefed the media on his rounds in the neighbourhood.

ACP Chester Williams, Regional Commander, Eastern Division South

“Today we are doing the St Martin’s Area; Flamboyant Street, Jasmine Street and Black Orchid Street. We are getting our feedback from the public and the feedback again has been good. We have a few complaints. Some are asking that they want to see more of the police presence. We have patrols in this area for sure, but sometimes the patrols tend to venture out of the area of patrol. So, what we need to do is to see how we can implement a system to ensure the patrols remain in their respective zones. So, we are optimistic with the vehicles that we will be getting from the US Embassy because those vehicles will be equipped with GPS and tracking device. So, whenever the vehicle step out of the areas of patrol, we will know. We will put measures in place to ensure that any officer who breaches that policy in terms of remaining in the area, that they are dealt with in some shape or form.”

Chester Williams

Reporter

“How many vehicles will you be getting, I don’t know?”

ACP Chester Williams

“We should be getting seven vehicles for southside Belize City. With those vehicles we will be almost where we want to be in terms of vehicular resources. They will increase our vehicular resources significantly and we should be able to provide a much better service, quicker response to the residents of Southside Belize City.”

Andrea Polanco

“Sir, what are some of the other concerns that you are able to share; perhaps concerns about loitering, drugs or crime, anything of that nature?”

ACP Chester Williams

“Yes. People do complain about people hanging out on the streets every day, including public drinking and it is something that we address every day. We know that it is those little things that eventually causes bigger crimes to occur. The issue with the children’s curfew, people are telling us to keep it up and they believe it is a good policy, a good law. Because with that they are seeing less and less children on the streets after hours at night. Once we have that then, I think our children will be in a much safer place being at home. So, those are things we will continue. At the end of the day we try to police in a manner that is conducive to the public that we serve.”