RODHILL KIRK, newly-appointed Snr Supt of the Tobago Division, said the majority of the ten murders that have been committed on the island for the year so far were gang-related, a new phenomenon for the island, – a haven for tourists from the US, UK and Europe.

“As it relates to murders, what we are seeing so far is that about 80 per cent is actually related to gang activity. Based on the intel we have gathered and the enquiries on the ground, it relates to gang activity,” he said in an interview with Newsday.

Kirk, who has been a police officer for 33 years, regarded this scenario as unprecedented.

“We have never seen such a thing before. While we may have the murders out of domestic violence, out of some form of altercation, it has never had that relation to gangs.”

He believes, though, that gangs in Tobago “are not of the proportion in Trinidad.” But he said they are driven by the battle for drug turf.

“So you find now that if you are affiliated to a particular gang and you venture into areas where the other persons were affiliated to another gang, this is what is spiralling the thing out of control.”

[caption id="attachment_1091794" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Snr Supt Rodhill Kirk, head of the Tobago Division. -[/caption]

As a result, he said, it is no longer easy to identify the communities in which gangs operate.

“While we could have said that Scarborough and environs have some activity, Plymouth have some activity, Golden Lane have some activity. Now, it is not isolated these communities. Things are happening throughout the island in places we have not seen.”

He cited a shooting incident at the Nine’s Bar in Speyside on May 3 where seven people were shot, as an example.

“This is something that I have never had on record that they had something like that in that area. We had shooting in Goldsborough and Pembroke. Again, these are things that we have not seen in these areas over the years.

“So again, things have been spreading throughout and our duty is to really disrupt or prevent these things from happening.”

Kirk, who was promoted to the rank of senior superintendent in early May, said the police is not only about crime detection but crime prevention.

“We are trying to be proactive in making sure that our resources are on the ground in the event of any sort of activity where we can respond quickly as well. This is our aim and objective right now.”

Saying the division is addressing the situation frontally, Kirk said it has already implemented several measures to disrupt gang activity.

Part of their strategy, he said, involves increased visibility.

“We have directed patrols in hotspots and we are using the intelligence in terms of how we deploy our resources. We know that based on what we are seeing that these criminals are networking as well because they tend to surveil the police activity.

“But so far, since we have undertaken to increase our visibility strategically, we have seen at least a reduction in our violent crimes.”

Still, he said there must be a workable