If the People’s National Movement (PNM) forms the next government, the Police Service may be demilitarised and allowed to focus solely on policing.
Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley said he agreed entirely with that proposal which was put forward by retired Brigadier General Ralph Brown.
Brown made the proposal at an outdoor event billed “Conversations with Dr Rowley” at Windsurf Park, Westmoorings, on Monday night.
Brown said the entire Police Service had to be reorganised. He said “all that stamping of feet, shouting and raising of hands” (marching) had to stop.
De-emphasise the military aspect of the Police Service and let it focus on police work, he said.
“Police want to be soldiers and soldiers want to be police so that there are now poldiers and solice”, he added.
Rowley said he agreed totally with that and said he had a plan to augment the Police Service with more municipal police officers.
“This will free up the police from that kind of groundwork,” he said.
Participating in the conversations was Major General Edmund Dillon, recently retired Chief of Defence Force, and the party’s candidate for Point Fortin.
Speaking on the issue of national security, Dillon said over the last five years there had been a fragmentation in the national security framework and a dismantling of its institutions.
Someone very much unqualified for the job was put in charge of the Special Intelligence Agency and because of the cancellation of the offshore patrol vessels, T&T’s borders had been left unprotected for the last five years, he said.
“We have seen the effect of the absence of that protection over the last five years. We have seen the amount of guns and drugs coming into our T&T.
“I have just come from a funeral where four members of my constituency, in the area of Chatham, were murdered.
“The main weapon used was, of course, the gun. Statistics show that 80 per cent of murders are committed with guns,” Dillon added.
He said: “We have reached a stage now where not only small arms are being used. Police have discovered AK-47 assault rifles... Tec-9 guns.”
Dillon said if the PNM got into government, it would have a total, holistic approach to crime- fighting.
“It cannot be left alone to law enforcement authorities. Intervention must be made at different levels of the lives of young men by parents, the church, the school, the community,” he added.