Dear Editor,
Commissioner Elton Lewis, along with his staff, continues to talk about how the community needs to work with the police in solving crimes and coming forward when they see something going on. Work with us and we'll work with you is the perpetual cry. But to whom do we turn?
Some really good policemen and women start to work in different communities and then they're transferred, thus there is no continuity. A police officer regularly stops by your place of business with his partner — even if it's just to wave at you from across the street – just to make sure that you're OK and you feel comfortable about that, and then he gets transferred downtown. A commander at your local precinct gives you both his cell phone number and his home number because you've sometimes had problems dealing with the local force and you don't abuse the respect, but then when you have a problem you find he's not there any more.
With all due respect to Commissioner Elton Lewis and those next in line, how the heck do you expect us to help you when we don't know who to go to for help? There are many people like me who have simply given up calling for help because we get a teeth-sucking attitude even if somebody does eventually arrive to "help."
I'm quite sure that I'm just only one among many scores of people living here who have a darned good idea about drug dealing and likely gun dealing also, but until the police force itself makes a concerted effort to properly deal with the community and make intelligent and positive inroads into the tiny areas which make up this wonderfully cosmopolitan small expanse of an island, then no progress will be made.
Sincerely yours,
Anna Clarke
St. Thomas
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