And while the BMDA is seeking stricter regulations, some members of the police department are trying to get out of upholding the law they should be enforcing. Earlier this week, we told you that attorney Richard "Dickie" Bradley wrote a letter on behalf of the police association asking for a grace period from SI 74 which mandates they get vaxxed or take a test. They said that the instructions to send officers home on August 9th if they don't have their vaccination cards or their tests was late, and the officers were not prepared. But today, the Commissioner rebutted that by saying they had more than enough time since the details of the SI were announced over a month ago.
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"While I could understand the angle from which Mr Bradley's letter was written, my response would be that all frontline workers were aware of the fact that this law would come into effect on the first of August because SI 74 came out in early July so the reality is that we had one month grace period and in addition to that one month, I had said to officers across the country and they would not enforce the provisions of the regulation until after the minister tour was over to give the officers that opportunity to be able to get some education on the vaccine because they would know as a part of our tour, we had medical experts with us who answered questions from the officers in terms of the vaccine with a view to sensitize them because one of the main issue that officers had that they do not have enough information on the vaccine so from what we did, many officers got the answer to the question they wanted to ask and based on that they were able to get the vaccine so out of fairness to them we had prolonged the implementation until Monday that gone so the officers in reality to had one month and practically two weeks grace period so I don't think that time was an issue. Now you would know that as first of august came, that police were busy in the Altun Ha area enforcing the regulations. Now it cannot be that we as enforcers of the law would be saying to people you must abide by the law but we ourselves are not in compliance, it is hypocritical to me. And so it was that spirit that I emphasize to officers the need to be vaccinated and if you don't want to be vaccinated then you must do the test and produce that rapid test every two weeks before you come to work."
