ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The new ACP in charge of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, Os­wain Subero, is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive on the is­land to­mor­row and says he will hit the ground run­ning.

Al­though he hasn’t of­fi­cial­ly re­ceived his ap­point­ment, Subero said he was al­ready pack­ing up to head to To­ba­go.

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Subero said he will ar­rive on the is­land by to­mor­row. He added that once he does, he will im­me­di­ate­ly be­gin to fa­mil­iarise him­self with the po­lice of­fi­cers un­der his com­mand and al­so be­gin to “in­tro­duce” him­self to To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Subero was pre­vi­ous­ly as­signed to the North­ern Di­vi­sion. He re­places ACP Col­lis Hazel, who held the post for ap­prox­i­mate­ly one year and four months. Hazel will al­so be­gin his new post­ing as head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Tac­ti­cal Unit.

Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk, who was the oth­er se­nior of­fi­cer in the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, has been re­placed by Snr Supt Earl Elie. He too is ex­pect­ed on the is­land to­mor­row, but could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.

Kirk, mean­while, will join the South­ern Di­vi­sion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia last week­end when news broke about the shake-up in the TTPS, ACP Subero said he was up for the chal­lenge to help re­store To­ba­go’s safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.

Subero said he planned to fo­cus on vi­o­lent crime re­duc­tion, build­ing on his pre­de­ces­sor’s ef­forts. He said then that he planned to build on ex­ist­ing crime-fight­ing strate­gies and urged To­bag­o­ni­ans to sup­port the po­lice for ef­fec­tive re­sults.

Crime in To­ba­go has been a ma­jor is­sue this year. At present, the is­land has seen a record 22 mur­ders.

In re­sponse to the uptick in vi­o­lence, po­lice of­fi­cers from Trinidad are now sta­tioned in To­ba­go.

In Ju­ly, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley met with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the heads of law en­force­ment in To­ba­go to dis­cuss ef­forts to counter crime there.

Chair­man of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, Cur­tis Williams, has wel­comed Subero to the is­land but al­so cau­tioned him say­ing the cul­ture in To­ba­go dif­fered from Trinidad and that Subero need­ed to fo­cus on de­liv­er­ing re­sults.