ComPol: 2 Substations Needed for San Pedro
As part of the tour, a town hall session was held with residents and various stakeholders in San Pedro on February sixth. While the police department was lauded for its crime fighting efforts, ComPol says that San Pedro has expanded tremendously that there is a need to install two substations to the north and south of the island.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
“We are looking at establishing a police substation north of San Pedro Town and one south of San Pedro Town. You know the island has grown significantly; it’s not like before where the people were centralized in one area. When you go north of San Pedro, it is almost like central San Pedro; it has developed significantly and it has become one of the most touristic parts of the island. And so where is a need for us to now decentralise in San Pedro. So if we put the booth north of San Pedro, we will have twenty-four hours police officers there. We want to have a checkpoint that will be able to look at persons who go over to the north because many of the major crimes that we have had in San Pedro occurred north Ambergris Caye. And so we need to see how we can put things in place to avert that. The police booth for the south…again south Ambergris Caye again has developed significantly so if it is that we can get those two police substations on the island, we want to be in a position where we can respond anywhere in the island within fifteen minutes.”
The goal is to have up to ninety officers attached to the San Pedro Police Station by the end of the year to staff the island. The next stop of the Commissioner’s Tour is the northern region comprising Corozal and Orange Walk districts.