Structural changes and regional police commanders

Changes in the hierarchy of the police command were announced today as was the zoning of the city. The changes, the police say, will provide for better policing and give the community more accessibility to the police in their anti-crime efforts. News Five’s Jose Sanchez.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting

There were several changes made to the command and structure of the police department. For Belize City, the most relevant structural modification is the establishment of four precincts to provide one hundred percent of services to the city.

Allen Whylie, Commissioner of Police

Allen Whylie

“These precincts will be staffed by uniformed patrol officers responsible for be it patrol and preventative duties. They’ll have traffic officers within; they’ll have intelligence officers within; they’ll have community police officers within; they’ll have criminal investigators within. The intent is that no longer do we want when a person comes to one of our stations for service, there is a delay and there is a turn around and they need to be sent to Queen Street. We have established four police precincts across Belize City. Precinct one is located at the corner of Kut Avenue and Euphrates Avenue and that precinct is under the command of Superintendent Alden Dawson and I’ll ask him to stand. We have precinct two which is established at the lower flat of this police headquarters building and the commander for this precinct is Superintendent Alford Grinage. We have precinct three which is at the lower flat of what was the former patrol branch building at Queen Street and the commander for precinct three is Superintendent Gualberto Garcia and I’ll ask him to stand also. And we have precinct four which is located at the existing Belama Police station and the commander for that precinct is Assistant Superintendent of Police David Chi and I’ll ask him to stand.”

Mr. Chan

A special advisor on loan from India for one year was also present at the conference.

Mr. Chan, Special Advisor, Via India Technical Commission

“My name is Ashuk Chan, I am from the Indian Police Service. I’ve done more than twenty year policing in the capital of India, Delhi. I have worked in various fields in the police department. We in India have a lot of terrorism and so I did the anti-terror network in Delhi for about seven years and then I did the crime investigation unit for a number of years and I’ve also been in what you call the police field duties.”

The Special Branch, an intelligence unit, will now have few members.

Allen Whylie

“We’ve not been able to get timely information on intelligence to be more proactive in terms of stopping crimes from being committed. We’ve done some changes in that branch where at Eastern Division we’ve reposted the commander as well as the deputy and a number of the other personnel who are there. The intent is that we would have a smaller special branch in terms of numbers, but we believe that with clear guidelines and terms of reference the smaller numbers may be able to yield better benefits to us. Hattieville and Ladyville, we have placed an additional senior NCO at the Bermudian Landing police station. We have placed a junior NCO at the Burrell Boom station. We have placed an additional junior NCO at the Maskall police station and we are also assigning six additional police officers to the Rural Sub Formation and we believe that the additional personnel as well as the NCOs will lead to improve performance at that area. I know recently we have been challenged that whilst we’ve did a number of operations in Belize City to control the situation, we had the balloon effect where a number of shootings and murders took place in the Ladyville area as well as the Hattieville area.”

Whylie announced the establishment of senior officers as four regional commanders responsible for different parts of the country. Regional Commander for the North is Senior Superintendent Joseph Myvette; for the Eastern Division Assistant Commissioner of Police Miguel Segura, for the West, Superintendent Aaron Guzman and the Southern Regional Commander is Senior Superintendent Robert Mariano. Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.

Assistant Commissioner of Police, Noel Leal is the new commander of Professional Standards Branch. Whylie also announced other appointments including Alvan Gentle as police adjudicator.