Miller: ‘You can’t be a police and a criminal’

Don’t be wolves in sheep’s clothing was the warning given to 31 regional police officers who were temporarily sworn into the local constabulary last Tuesday at the police training centre at Old Montrose by Commissioner of Police Keith Miller.{{more}}

The officers, including six instructors, a Sergeant Major and a commanding officer, hail from the six other countries that make up the Regional Security System (RSS), and are here completing phase two of the RSS basic course.

They joined their six Vincentian counterparts for what is termed the jungle training component of this course that is designed for officers in the various Special Services Units’ (SSU) in the RSS member countries.

While here, the officers will be engaged in practical field exercises including a tactical exercise in this country. Most of their training will be concentrated in the hermitage forest reserves, COP Miller said.

During the month of training, they will have powers of arrest and other privileges accorded members of the local police force.

“You can’t be a policeman and a criminal at the same time,” COP Miller Miller told the officers at the brief swearing-in ceremony which followed the opening exercises marking the beginning of phase two of the course.

Miller said that he and his counterpart COPs are depending on the police officers to take the fight to the criminals, and challenged them to assert themselves in the fight against crime and lawlessness.

Earlier, at the official launching of the training programme, Miller said that there is a common crime trend throughout the Caribbean, and noted that the fight against criminality has occupied the minds of the CARICOM heads and the regional COPs.

Cabinet Secretary (ag) Bernard Morgan delivered the feature address and told the officers that crime statistics regionally are painting a worrisome picture.

He noted that the international crime context is weighing heavily on the Caribbean and now “no country can consider itself immune.”

“No modern state can combat the threat on its own,” Morgan noted, adding “cooperation is an imperative of the highest order.”(KJ)