Police Hosts a Community Awareness Fair
This week, a series of activities are taking place to highlight the work of the police department. One of the initiatives that builds relations with the public is community policing; it gets residents to work with the police. News Five’s Duane Moody was at a fair where the many functions of the department were on display even as visitors were getting free medical check-ups. Here is that report.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Today, simultaneous community awareness fairs took place at the Queen and Raccoon Streets Police Stations in the Old Capital. It’s part of the calendar of activities to commemorate Police Week, which began on Sunday. Residents and those in attendance were exposed to the various arms of the police department and their functions. PR Officer, Woman Corporal of Police Hortence Hernandez says that it allows for persons to interface with the department on many levels.
Hortence Hernandez
WCP Hortence Hernandez, PR Officer, Belize Police Department
“We have Prosecution Branch, we have Domestic Violence Unit, we have the K-Nine; we have different policing units here that have information to give to the general public. We have members from Domestic Violence Unit to tell the public how it operates and how the process of making a report. We also have representatives from 922. We know that people are at a fear of making reports because they don’t want any information getting out on who are making those reports. So the representatives from 922 are here to say this is how it works and this is the process of making those reports.”
Residents were also able to do basic medical checkups and even get their eyes tested and teeth cleaned.
WCP Hortence Hernandez
“We are bringing services to the community. Often time we hear people complaining that they don’t know what is going on, where they can go to get what service, so we are bringing it to the community. We have BCVI, we have Lion’s Club, Women’s Department, Youth Department, we have BAHA; so many different organizations here bringing in the information to the community. Behind you, we have free dental cleaning. So what you see going on at Raccoon Street likewise will be going on at Queen Street compound. The only thing is that at the Queen Street compound, they are not doing any dental cleaning, but they are doing rapid HIV testing, diabetes testing, blood pressure tests and so on.”
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
“We try to reach out to every sector of the society that we serve and we cannot only have this event at one area; after all, we are across the country. And so each of the different head stations across the country are doing the same thing. And partnering with different agencies, governmental or N.G.O., is very important because they too form a part of what we do on a daily basis.”
This is only one of the many activities for police week, which Commissioner of Police Williams says is necessary to foster community policing efforts and at the same time highlight officers who continue to serve the citizenry.
Chester Williams
Chester Williams
“We have the medal award ceremony tomorrow where a number of police officers will be receiving various degrees of medals; from long service medal, meritorious, distinguish service. So again it will be a memorable occasion in the lives of many police officers tomorrow and we want to ensure that the day goes through well; that these officers who will be the recipient of these medals tomorrow, the event will be such that they will remember for a lifetime.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
