Following is the statement made by Superintendent of Police, Vannie Curwen April 1 on action taken by the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) in keeping with the State of Emergency
I’ll make a statement this morning: So let me start by saying on Monday, the 30th of January 2020, the Minister for Health, the Honourable Nicholas Steele announced tightening measures aimed at preventing the continued spread of the COVID-19 virus in Grenada, the country was placed under a seven day 24 hour curfew with limited time for grocery shopping.
It became the daunting task of the RGPF to enforce these measures and ensure the spirit, and intent of the new measure is met. What we have done since then is to first conceptualise our operational design. And this is what we have done in this regard. We have established our operational Management Center (OMC) from which all law enforcement responses are coordinated on a national front.
We appeared on radio and television programs educating the public on the new measures and the penalties of violating them. We hosted two Zoom media briefings prior to this one, providing information to the media, and to the general public, and we answered as many questions as were posed.
We set up vehicular checkpoints across the country preventing persons from crossing parish boundary lines, and within parishes without having the necessary permission to do so. These measures are 24-hour measures. We deployed mobile patrol across the country both day and night and that too is 24 hours and on-going.
We encourage citizens to dial in information of persons violating the curfew without having to give their names, in other words, you can remain anonymous. We are interested in information and not necessarily the identity of the person providing those information.
We’ve issued to date, dozens of passes to farmers, essential services workers who do not have identification, caregivers, persons taking essential workers to work and airport for charter flights, and other categories of persons deemed necessary to move around during this period.
All of these operational design went into place to achieve the results that I am now going to discuss with you. To date, for the first two days of this latter period or this last period of seven days, under the new measures we have arrested 20 persons, 11 on Day One and Day One started at 6.00 a.m. on Monday morning to 6.00 a.m. on Tuesday, and Day Two, 6.00 a.m. on Tuesday to 6.00 a.m this morning.
So on Day One we arrested 11 persons on Day Two, we arrested, nine persons. So today for those two days, we have arrested 20 persons. On Day One, 10 of the 11 persons were arrested for breach of the curfew. One person was arrested for violating the distance protocol. The addresses of the 11 persons for Day One is as follows: three persons from St David’s, 7 persons from St. George’s, one person from St. John.
On Day Two of the 9 persons arrested seven are from St George’s, one from St Patrick’s, and one from St. Andrew.
We want to thank the public profoundly for the tremendous support in letting us know what is happening in the neighbourhood. Without your effort, we would not have been this successful.
Please continue to call in whatever information you may have on violators of the curfew. You can continue to do so by dialling 440-3999, 911 our emergency line or the nearest police station.
We also want to thank the Grenadian public for their cooperation in adhering to the advice given to stay indoors. We have seen very little movement of people thus far. And, if we continue to adhere to the advice to stay indoors we have no doubt that Grenada will be spared the wrath of sicknesses and diseases that we have seen in other countries.
Starting today, we are adding our drone capabilities to our law enforcement efforts. We will be using drones to assist law enforcement in our endeavours to ensure that the curfew is being abided by and that citizens adhere to the advice given to them.
Since, Grenada has gone into this limited phase (of the State of Emergency) on the 25th of March, we have arrested 47 persons in total for violating the curfew, 27 for the first week, and 20 thus far for the first few days of this last seven days.
We urge you, members of the public to please adhere to the advice given by the medical professionals. Please, stay indoors, and only move if you have to, when you have, having the right permission so to do.
We are at the same time stepping up our law enforcement engagements on the outside. We are becoming tougher in the way we handle violators of the regulations. Our arrest and our patrolling is intensifying as we go deeper into this period of the 7 days.
We urge you, please abide by the law and avoid us having to detain, arrest or inconvenience you.
Thank you so very much.