Changes coming, says senior officer
Louis B Homer South Bureau
Saturday, February 23rd 2008

Sweeping changes in the system of reporting crimes, identification of police officers and a step up on the prosecution of people committing praedial larceny were some of the changes announced for a revamping of the Police Service by senior officers on Thursday night .
At a meeting held with residents in the Forres Park area, Deputy Commissioner of Police Glen Roach told villagers: "Officers will be wearing name tags during the execution of warrants or while making enquiries."

Roach said it will not be necessary in the future to make reports at police stations in the area where a crime is committed.
"You will now be able to make them at any station and we will ensure that the report is forwarded to the appropriate station," Roach said.
Roach led a team of senior officers to interface with residents on the increase in crime in the area.

The meeting was attended by the parliamentary representative for the area, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, and representatives from the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation.
Among those who made presentations to police officers was a woman who requested anonymity. She told the officers that burglars entered her home, tied her up and took away several valuable items.

After listening to the reports, the officers advised the villagers that the police were aware of the problems they encountered. Roach advised them to "work along with the police and give them the necessary support".

The villagers were also told that there will be an increase in the number of police officers on patrol throughout the country. Officers in police cars have been asked to make periodic stops to talk to villagers.

"They will not be driving through the area alone.
"We have asked them to stop and have friendly chats with villagers," a senior officer at the meeting said.

He said the administration was looking into the establishment of "rural constables" to operate within the community.

Fucking-sweeping-changes my ass. Patrol? Talk to the residents? Yuh cud get robbed in Curepe and report it in Toco? Prosecution of the fowl tief? Name tags?

What the fuck is all this? Some of this suppose to be done and the others are irrelevant to the crime situation.

Name tag: Half of the police officers name "Joseph".

Fowl tief: The other half of the police officers does tief the fowl.

Waste of fucking time.

Here are some suggestions for sweeping changes:

1) Phase out the SRP (special reserve police) and make all of them officers.

2) Drop the retirement age to 45. Send home the ole farts.

3) Hire a PR firm and a literacy expert to re-train the officers.

4) Hire staff for administrative, traffic & 'guard' work - free up officers.

5) Revamp the whole service get rid of the shit units - CSU, CID, AKS whatever

6) Have an independent Police Management Department - get rid of the police complaint dept.

Joseph: Guyana massacre senseless

GOVERNMENT yesterday condemned the killing of 12 persons, including three police officers, in Guyana’s gold-mining town, Bartica, on Sunday, the second massacre within a month which has sparked fears of a breakdown in law and order in the country.

Eight persons were wounded in the shooting spree which spread from a police station to the streets.

National Security Minister Martin Joseph yesterday disclosed that he had made efforts to speak with Guyana’s Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee “to determine what assistance, if any, may be needed at this time.”

Joseph, chairman of a Caricom committee of national security ministers, said he was appalled at “the senseless killings and loss of lives through this dastardly act by cold-blooded killers” and expressed concern that police officers were among the dead.

Trinidad and Tobago’s High Consul to Guyana, Ernie Ross, yesterday described the massacre as a brutal act of terrorism but said Guyana has not asked any country for help to apprehend the killers or restore calm to Bartica.

Regarded as one of Guyana’s prime tourism sites, Bartica is located 80 miles southwest of Georgetown on the banks of the Essequibo River on lands covering an area of 83,000 square miles and is a gateway to the country’s dense hinterland.

Ross said no Trinidad and Tobago nationals were among those killed or injured in Bartica. He said Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo was overseas at the time of the attack on a “confidential mission” concerning his country’s security challenges and was expected to return home last night.

Oh god, look how I laugh till meh fockin head nearly buss.

Martin Joseph calling somebody to ask them what assistance dey need. Oh GOD! All yuh help, ah cyah stop fockin laughing.

Wa d fock he goin to offer dem. Police intelligence, equipment, police officers....? we doh have enough of all of the above.

What ah big dotish cacahole........hahahahhahah

Warring gangs to sign peace treaty
Joel Julien jjulien@trinidadexpress.com
Friday, February 15th 2008

IN an effort to curb the escalating violence in Laventille, two of the area's warring factions are said to be preparing to sign a peace treaty tomorrow.

A community activist yesterday called the Express to indicate that the peace accord is to be signed between the Picton and John John gangs under the watchful eyes of the police.
But Commissioner of Police Trevor Paul said yesterday he had no knowledge of any such agreement. However, Paul said if such an agreement were to be made, the police would be ready.

Over the past week, there has been a buzz of activity in Laventille, culminating in the eight-hour lockdown of an area known as Beverly Hills, all in the wake of an upsurge of violence which followed the killing of notorious gang leader Sheldon "Crock" Scott on Carnival Sunday.
On Saturday, 16-year-old Kevin Lewis was killed near Pump Trace and on Sunday night Curt Lester was shot dead in a track off Picton Road. Two houses in Picton were also firebombed that night.

Several peace accords have been signed among the warring factions in the Laventille area before, but none of them have ever held up as the killings and gang-related violence have continued.

What the muddercunt fucking shitness and assholeness is this?

So lemme get this straight.

Keevon aka 'Scrap' going to pump 12 bullets in Leroy 'Metal' head, jes fuh so.

Leroy will then pull out the DSNT (Don't Shoot Nigger Treaty).

Then he will pull out the coolie he jes kidnap to read it for he and Keevon.

How about the fucking Police Commissioner lock down the muddercunt area, smoke out the gangs, arrest they cunt, charge them for anything - if they breathing, they tiefing oxygen. Dat should be a charge.

Jail them, no bail. Try dem in court. Sentence them. While in jail, let them sign a treaty saying they will not smuggle hacksaw blades to break out, or else they will be shot. We could call that one the YSHT (Yes Shoot Nigger Treaty).

Where else in this fucking galaxy does the police entertain these lil pieces of fucking filth and scum... and call them community leaders? Why give a fuck? If the police knows who they are, and what they are doing, then arrest the mudder cunt. Simple.

Bas wants Espinet to step down

Wednesday, February 13 2008

LAWYERS for former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday want Magistrate Ejenny Espinet to step down from hearing his bribery case.

Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj SC, lead counsel for Panday and his wife Oma, submitted yesterday in the Port-of-Spain First Magistrates’ Court that Espinet was a trustee of the Morris Marshall Development Foundation in Laventille.

Maharaj said the Marshall Foundation promotes the activities of the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) which is opposed to Panday’s United National Congress (UNC).

He said there could be a public perception that the magistrate was promoting the aims of the Foundation. Maharaj said he had evidence that persons who went to the Foundation for assistance were told they must carry a PNM party card. He said when Panday’s case went before the magistrate, she had a duty to tell the lawyers that she was a trustee of the Foundation.

The Tabaquite MP said apart from Espinet being a trustee, there were other names on the list such as John Jeremie and Martin Joseph.

“This is a very sensitive matter,” Maharaj added. “I am serving notice that if you decide against me after hearing my submissions, I will not call evidence, but I would test it in the High Court.”

Maharaj added, “The politics in the country are very much alive, the country is divided politically. Here is a magistrate who is involved in a Foundation started by a former PNM Minister.”

Maharaj said there was the likelihood of apparent bias and cited the case of Panday v Virgil in which the Leader of the Opposition was charged with failing to declare a London bank account to the Integrity Commission.

He also cited the case of Pinochet in which Lord Hoffmann was accused of apparent bias because of his wife’s links to Amnesty International. After hearing the submissions, Espinet said she would give her decision on February 19.

But Panday and his wife were excused because they are expected to be in London for his Privy Council appeal as to whether he should be retried on the integrity charges.

Ishwar Galbaransingh, Carlos John, and the Pandays are charged with a series of offences which allege that Galbaransingh and John gave Panday £25,000 as a bribe to favour Galbaransingh’s Northern Construction Limited in the tendering process for Piarco Construction Package 3 back in December 1998.

Ejenny is a fockin PNM stooge. Sitting and hearing this matter without telling the fockin people that you and your PNM assholes were in the same organisation.

LEAP is ah PNM party group. Check the list of the Board of Trustees:

Morris Marshall
Fr. Clyde Harvey
Mr Martin Joseph
Ms. Donna Prowell-Raphael
Mr. Carlston Clarke
Mr. John Jeremie
Mr. Albert Joseph
Ms. Carolyn Washington Aigle
Me. Joslyn Mc Leod-Smith
Ms. Linda Hollingsworth
Ms. Ejenny Espinet
Mr. Jack Alexsis
Ms. Debbie Jeremie
Ms. Ayanna Atiba-Braithwaite
Mr. Raphael George.

Bas right again, he could never get a fair trial for anything in T&T!
Put that in yuh bamsee and smoke it!

Ramesh, Jack go ‘up the hill’

Wednesday, February 13 2008

UNC Alliance MPs Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and Jack Warner yesterday promised Beverly Hills residents that their fears over crime in Laventille will be taken up with the Government.

They also promised to help revitalise Laventille through the introduction of football clinics and classes for women to acquire skills.

Warner and Maharaj met a handful of Beverly Hills residents who spoke about searches by the police and army in their community, which had been prompted by recent violence. “I will send some football coaches and donate the footballs starting from today,” Warner told the few Beverly Hills residents.

Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj defended the visit saying it was not meant to score political points.

“We believe that where a fear or insecurity exists and whenever the need arises, we will go in and help,”said Maharaj

He said letters will be sent on the residents behalf to Prime Minister Patrick Manning, Minister of National Security Martin Joseph and the Police Commissioner Trevor Paul. Maharaj said the police, especially those trained in community policing, should maintain a round-the-clock presence in Laventille to ease residents fears and to guide the troubled youths.

He said criminal gangs are going to become uncontrollable because they extort money from residents.

“This is a time when the Inter Religious Organisation and every stakeholder should understand that if they do not intervene, the country will have no rule of law, no accountability, and the criminals will be in control of every sector”, he predicted.

One vocal woman said she wanted more social programmes for the Beverly Hills community.

“I have two left foot, I cannot play football, but what I want, Mr Warner, is to buy a kiln machine so that I could teach the women in Beverly Hills how to make ceramics.”

She said she planned to approach her MP Marlene Mc Donald for help to set up programmes in Beverly Hills.

I dunno why Jack and Ramesh feel they could help these niggas.

Understand one thing fellas, these niggas will rather fock themselves in dey bottom wid ah young balisier rather than give political support to you boys.

Stop wasting your time on this scum of Trinidad and focus on people who want to be productive.

Most niggas generally all over the world depend on welfare and drugs for survival. They like it so.

I'll reproduce an article from the National Post for your perusal.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Ghetto godfather

For seven years, Sudhir Venkatesh studied the workings of a Chicago street gang. His new book explains why gangs flourish--and how to get rid of them

Jonathan Kay, National Post
Published:Tuesday, February 12, 2008

In 1989, a University of Chicago graduate student named Sudhir Venkatesh decided to leave his cocoon-like campus, and find out what life was like in his city's notorious public housing projects. So he wandered into the decrepit Lake Park projects in Chicago's Oakland neighborhood, introduced himself to a group of teenagers shooting dice, whipped out a clipboard, and asked them this question: "How does it feel to be black and poor? Very bad, somewhat bad, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good?"

"You got to be f-cking kidding me," the ringleader said. And the whole dumbstruck group convulsed with laughter.

Hearing how ridiculous his own question sounded, Venkatesh realized then and there that he was wasting his time. The residents of this squalid building were living lives completely alien to his middle-class upbringing. He wasn't going to get inside their heads with patronizing multiple-choice questions.

But foolish as he felt, Venkatesh caught a break that day, one that eventually set him on a path to a rock-star reputation within sociology, and a professorship in the Ivy Leagues.

The toughs Venkatesh stumbled on were low-level foot soldiers with the Black Kings, an enormous regional outfit whose Lake Park operations were controlled by a formidable gangland general named J.T.

Against all odds, Venkatesh struck up an instant bond with the man. Unlike just about everyone else who lived at Lake Park, J.T. had been to college, and had even studied sociology in preparation for a short-lived career in the legitimate business world.

A narcissist, J.T. imagined his life to be worthy of biography, and invited Venkatesh into his inner circle as a sort of court scribe. For the next seven years, Venkatesh would become eyewitness to the inner workings of gang life. His remarkable account of those years -- contained in a newly released book, Gang Leader for a Day: A rogue sociologist takes to the streets-- is required reading for anyone who wants to understand why gangs continue to thrive among the West's underclass.

The first thing one notices about the world Venkatesh describes is this:

There are no fathers. Everyone at Lake Park -- even J.T., who commands 200 gangsters and, in a good year, makes six figures from crack-dealing -- lives with their momma.

The young men don't dream of settling down with a family. Rather, they seek to emulate the polygamous J.T., who uses his drug proceeds to lodge various girlfriends in separate apartments. With no father figures to guide them, these men internalize the juvenile conception of manhood peddled by rap videos, and fritter away their adolescent years pursuing it through streetcorner posturing and brawling.

The nature of the local economy is the second thing that stands out: Except for the corner stores (which are run by Arabs), there is little legitimate free-market activity. Virtually all of the money coming in to Lake Park comes from two sources: government welfare and drugs. The few people who apply actual market-able job skills within the community -- such as the mechanic "C-Note," who gets his name because he has "a hundred ways to make a hundred dollars" -- are so rare as to be minor celebrities.

As a result, criminality is normalized: The idea of studying hard, going to college and getting a respectable job -- the formula for success applied by waves of European and Asian immigrants to North American since the late 19th century -- is dismissed as a white man's fantasy.
Gang life is at the centre of all these pathologies.

But as Venkatesh explains, the local residents' attitude toward the Black Kings is actually quite conflicted. Because violence attracts police, and police scare away customers, J.T. has an economic interest in keeping life in the projects peaceful. For a small cut of the action, his henchmen provide a security detail for the local crack dens, and protection for prostitutes. They also drive sick residents to the hospital, organize basketball games, and even stage get-out-the-vote drives on behalf of the local black political machine. There is plenty of violence in Gang Leader for a Day. But it is not random. Like all petty tyrants, J.T. understands that his legitimacy rests on providing some semblance of order.

The portrait that emerges from this book therefore complicates the simple black-and-white way we normally think of the gang problem. Yes, gangs act as a criminal evil that act in opposition to the law-and-order culture that pervades mainstream society.

But in very poor areas that are bereft of the basic sociological building blocks of middle-class society -- stable families, legitimate employment, job skills, respect for education -- an established gang can, in some instances, take over some of the functions normally served by police, employers, and even social workers.

At the same time, Gang Leader for a Day implicitly suggests a strategy for tackling this underlying subculture: overhauling the drug laws and welfare programs that serve as its two-pronged economic power source.

As Canadian gang expert Michael C. Chettleburgh wrote in a June, 2007, National Post op-ed, our criminal prohibition of recreational drugs permits gangs to capture the massive economic premium associated with illegal enterprise. By treating drug use as what it truly is --a health problem instead of a criminal-justice problem -- we would force gangs to fall back onto far less lucrative activities, and thereby discourage membership.

At the same time, implementing a draconian welfare reform of the type the United States enacted under Bill Clinton could serve to eliminate the state's role in subsidizing a ghetto culture in which permanent unemployment is seen as a viable lifestyle choice.

Ultimately, all social reform begins with responsible people making individual decisions: No government policy can force people, of whatever skin col-our, to live their lives in a responsible way. But we can do a better job at setting up the right incentives, so that teenagers and young adults find themselves more inspired by Venkatesh than the gang leader he's written about.

jkay@nationalpost.com

Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Rowley cleared

By FRANCIS JOSEPH
Wednesday, February 13 2008

TRADE Minister Dr Keith Rowley has been cleared by the Integrity Commission of any wrongdoing. But the Minister is not leaving it there, as he intends to seek aggravated and exemplary damages against the Commission for what he called the “gross damage to my personal character and public reputation.”

By a letter dated February 1, Martin Farrell, Registrar of the Integrity Commission, wrote to Rowley about the investigation which they had been conducting since 2004 concerning the Landate housing project in Tobago, and the award of the contract for the Customs and Excise building in Port-of-Spain. Farrell wrote, “As a result of further investigations into this matter, the Commission is now of the view that there is no longer any basis for suspecting that you may have conducted yourself in a manner that was in breach of your duties under the Act (Integrity in Public Life Act 2000), and I have been directed to advise the Director of Public Prosecutions of this decision.” Farrell ended his letter, “This investigation is now at an end and the Commission thanks you for your cooperation.”

But in a statement issued yesterday, the Diego Martin West MP pointed out that in October 2004, Ganga Singh, the then MP for Caroni East, using the protection of parliamentary privilege, “dramatically made the most scandalous and unfounded allegations against me resulting in a public Commission of Inquiry, with which he failed to cooperate and in which I was exonerated from any unlawful conduct of any nature.”

Rowley said that notwithstanding this, the Integrity Commission embarked on its own separate inquiry. The Minister said he was shocked to see in the media that he was the subject of a police investigation by way of a submission of rumours to the DPP.

Rowley said the baseless allegations have caused gross damage to his personal character and public reputation and additionally have caused his family, particularly his wife, whose private sector project, was the subject of the initial slander, inestimable discomfiture and unwarranted embarrassment.”

Although the Commission has admitted that Rowley has been cleared, the Minister is still seeking a declaration that it acted in bad faith and/or was motivated by ulterior motives and/or was reckless.

Rowley said he was seeking aggravated and exemplary damages.

The case comes up for hearing on March 3 before Madame Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee in the Port-of-Spain High Court.

In November 2004, the Integrity Commission embarked on an investigation in respect to unspecified allegations regarding the siphoning of materials from the Scarborough Hospital site to a development project at Mason Hall, Tobago.

The development at Mason Hall, owned by Rowley’s wife Sharon, has been referred to as the Landate project.

As i have indi fockin cated on many occasions, once bobol involves a PNMite, expect that the fockers will be cleared.

Plain and simple the mudder cont and Emile Elias that next fockin con man was teefing the material from the Hospital to build he fockin apts.

I am not surprised.

Panday wants enquiry into blimp purchases

Juhel Browne Jbrowne@trinidadexpress.com
Monday, February 11th 2008

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday is calling for a public enquiry into Government's acquisition of its first national security blimp, which cost $12.6 million but was not suitable for the country's weather conditions.

"Who recommended it? You can't come now and tell us the atmosphere was bad. What happen? Somebody change the wind?" Panday said yesterday

He said there should be a public enquiry to investigate the Government's acquisition of the other blimp ,which along with the first have cost the State $67.1 million over the past three years.

"There was a massive corruption and bribery in the purchase of those blimps and we must demand a public enquiry," Panday said. at the UNC-A national congress meeting at the party's Rienzi Complex headquarters in Couva.

Panday said that the acquisition of the blimps must be examined in the same way that the Piarco International Airport terminal building project had been.

The Commission of Enquiry into that project led to charges being laid against former national security minister Russell Huggins and former finance minister Brian Kuei Tung along with several other people.

Their cases are still pending.

His comments came three days after National Security Minister Martin Joseph, disclosed in the Parliament exactly how much money the Government spent on the blimps.

Joseph defended the acquisition saying that they were part of an overall law enforcement strategy and provided vital intelligence for crime fighting.

Joseph said the Government sold the first blimp, the Aeros 40B SkyDragon, for its original $15.75 million price tag and after spending an additional $7.2 million to repair it.

So the real fockin price of this piece of shit is really almost 23 million. Will any fockin body in dey right mind buy something and spend half of the cost to repair it. Doesnt make fockin sense to me. To PNMites maybe!

The Government then leased the Skyship 600 at a cost of $4,785,590 for the period November 24, 2005, to mid-May 2006 and then purchased it at a price of $15,750,000, in June 2006.

The Skyship 600 is the only airship currently in operation and costs an average of $1.417 million a month or $17.01 million annually while an additional $26.9 million has been spent to repair and maintain it.

How in the mudder cont world you will buy ah fockin car and spend almost twice the amount to repair. Does that make sense ?

We were building the airport and the PNM accused the UNC of corruption in the airport building. We held an enquiry," Panday said.

He then added: "We ask them to reciprocate. When they called for an enquiry into the airport, we did it. We are calling for an enquiry into the purchase of the blimps."

Oh fock the PNM real take the cake yes.

Some party hack make some good donsai on this fockin deal.

Leh we find out who bought it on behalf of the PNM.