Tackling Social Distancing

Commissioner of Police Chester Williams spoke to News Five today about the issue the department is facing with citizens adhering to social distancing guidelines. On Wednesday, we showed you the queue of residents trying to access services from financial institutions as well as various pantry programmes across the city. Many were not practicing social distancing and in some cases, the police had to intervene. Now the programme is important to help families put food on the table, but ComPol Williams says it comes with problems.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Yesterday the pantry programme was a disaster and I had to get on the phone and communicate with those responsible for it to see what can be done to regularise it and put measures in place to prevent what we saw yesterday. The police tried arduously to try and see what we could have done to try and ensure that social distancing was maintained, but the way how people were coming because they wanted to be sure that they get their pantry, it was really difficult to contain them. So one suggestion I made to the organizers was instead of going to a location and have people come, you all already know the address and the names of the persons who are entitled to the pantry; why not deliver the pantry to them instead of them coming to you. One of the things that was brought to my attention by the C.E.O. in the Ministry of Human Development is that there are some organizations that are providing groceries and meals to the needy and they may not have the resources to do the deliveries. Again as a law enforcement agency and putting the issue of humanitarian at the forefront of what we do, we don’t want to be seen as depriving the needy people of what they could get to help them survive in this difficult time. And so we have to find a way to strike a balance that we can work with those agencies like Salvation Army, for example. They are out there with a clean heart trying to help people who are in need. It is difficult for us to say to them you know what you want to help these people, deliver it to them. They don’t have the resources.”