And as the police continue to investigate the fourth murder in this week alone, the UDP's call for the Commissioner of Police's resignation echoes. In previous press conferences, they've asked for Minister Kareem Musa's head, but this time, the shadow minister for National Security, Michael Peyrefitte, says it's time for Chester to go.
Yesterday, the ComPol made a post scolding those who use the crime rate for political mileage. And today, he told us that maybe it's time for the opposition to resign, especially since Peyrefitte seems to be flip flopping with his stance on crime:
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"I'll wait and see when they will call for their resignation! Maybe they need to resign from being the opposition, I don't know. But again I'm trying to figure out what may have motivated Mr Peyrefitte... idle and politics. The police department should not be used as a political tool, the lives of our young people being lost on our streets should not be used as a political tide to get one political party from point A to the point B. The issue of fighting crime is a complex one. Mr Peyrefitte came from the belly of the beast, he was our minister under the previous administration and he certainly understands and he knows the complexity of fighting crime, he understands the shortage of resources that we suffer from and when I say resources I mean human and otherwise and he also understands that fighting crime is not a police issue because he used to always say that the public has to play their part as well and so I don't understand how all those things that we used to discuss that he's aware of that all of a sudden he no longer remembers them, all for his own political aggrandizement, I don't think it's fair. The men and women of this police department work extremely hard everyday to make sure that our citizenry are safe and no matter how much police we have, we'll never be able to completely erase crime and no matter what we do, if we don't get the support of the public, the participation of the public, we'll not be able to fight crime the way we should and that's why our current minister has embarked on the multi sectorial approach in fighting crime where we get the different stakeholders who are responsible for certain things coming together and we're trying to see how we can address crime now from the root causes as opposed to just addressing the symptoms. I believe that we as police are doing the best we can and even if I was to be gone, the minister was to be gone, the CEO was to be gone, the problem would still persist. For the past three years that I have been commissioner of police, our murder rate has been below the previous years before I became commissioner which means that the effort or strategy we have in place is working and if we do little more it can become better and that's exactly what we're trying to do. When they had the highest murder rate in the country which was 2012, under the UDP administration, I didn't see the Minister of National Security resign then, I did not see the commissioner of police resign then, I did not see that happen, and that year is still on record today as the year with the highest murder count."
Williams was made Commissioner in January 2019.
