Tighter security as Laventille Technology Centre reopens

NEW SECURITY measures, including metal detectors and armed police officers, were yesterday implemented to protect staff and students at the Laventille Technology and Continuing Education Centre.
The skills training institution was shut down last Tuesday following an armed robbery of one of the lecturers and staff had threatened to stay away until better security arrangements were put in place.
The Centre, which is located along the Eastern Main Road, opposite the Beetham Gardens.
School authorities will soon be introducing photo identification cards for all the users of the facility.
According to one official at the centre, who asked not to be named, said the school was located near a "gang's" territorial border which itself carries its own challenges for the school. Snr Supt Alfred Sealy, of the Port of Spain Division, who spoke to the students yesterday assured them that the police will do all that was necessary to keep them safe.
"This is your school. You have to be the example to those in your community and I will give you the assurance that we (the police) will stop a lot of things from happening," he said.
A school officials said a student was held last year with a home-made pistol on the compound and they believed he made the weapon at the Centre.
Back in 2005, the Centre was set up at a cost of $32 million to provide training opportunities especially to young people in the area who were either unemployed or unemployable.
Since then scores of skilled young people have been produced amid the spectre of a growing gang warfare just outside its gates.
Source: trinidadexpress.com