British territory top cops discussing mutual aid agreement
Members of Royal Cayman Islands Police in Road Town a month after Hurricane Irma impacted the British Virgin Islands.
Getting assistance from other regional law enforcement agencies might become something the British Virgin Islands is entitled to receive.
That is according to Commissioner of Police, Michael Matthews. He and other police commissioners from British Overseas Territories are currently meeting in Miami in the United States to explore the possibility.
“That’s one of the discussions we are having – how we take that forward as an agreement amongst all the commissioners,” Commissioner Matthews said this week.
If the top cops agree on mutual aid and interoperability between police forces across overseas territories, officers in the Royal Virgin Islands Police will also be subject to deployment to other territories.
“We had officers in Bermuda and the Cayman in the past. We may get the call in the future to assist elsewhere as well … We all recognize as commissioners that sometimes when you have extreme events just like what we had here last September, you can’t always manage everything on your own and sometimes when you’re trying to get back on your feet you need that little bit of extra assist,” Matthews added.
The police commissioners’ meeting will start today and last until Friday, March 9.
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I’m surprised that the VI does not already have mutual aide agreements with other regional sister countries, including other OTs. Is this not the standard in governing, ie, good governance. The storm damaged the territory’s only prison. But it seems there were no mutual aide agreements in place to help.
Luckily, St. Lucia came to the rescue (at a cost no doubt, $14K per month). Many St. Lucians were/are raising cane about temporarily housing the prisoners, claiming they were a threat to the society (one gets the impression that they were tun loose on the street). Several years ago, a regional Windward Island country raised cane that TT were charging for construction material and other supplies after a hurricane.
The region is still fragmented; it needs to unite. The Caribbean is in a disaster prone zone so it is not if but when a diaster can and will strike any country. Today for me tomorrow for me should be the attitude; this is a healthy attitude. Let’s unite, pool resources, and face challenges together as one. Canada does it, America does it, Australia does it…….etc so why can’t the region?
Keep swapping them through all the OTs so our cops don’t always know everyone, have a relatives, friends and neighbours they treat differently. We need cops interested in enforcing the law, whoever break it.
@Careful: I think you misunderstood exactly how the process will work. There will be no swapping of offers perse. What will happen is if the Commissioner of Police needs assistance to investigate a serious allegation against a police officer there and feel that’s it will be best to get outside help in the interest of transparency he can call the Commissioner of Police from one of the other overseas territories for assistance. Similarly, if there is a natural disaster like what he had with Irma where officers from the Cayman Islands and the UK Turks came to the BVI to assist.
Commis, you’re cooking…keep at it, Sir. There should be some light at the end of the tunnel, eventually.
Look at how life is? One of your own who you refuse could be a Top Cop in another country in the Eastern Caribbean just like what the one that got the job in Antigua. LOL egg on your face now ha.
This is nothing new, this was in place all along. I have performed duties in Turks and Cayman in the pass. It’s just that nothing happened in a while that required such deployment of officers, this is normally in the case of disaster, unrest or investigations. Good job COP Matthews, keep up the fight.
Every body in the picture praying but Mark vanterpool looking around.