The latter incident occurred despite an SOE in place in some parts of the country, including Roaring Creek and Cotton Tree. But the ComPol was quick to point out that there is no SOE in the twin towns.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"We have to understand that, one, the San Ignacio, Santa Elena area is not under SOE so please don't try to..."

Jules Vasquez:
"I'm not trying to conflate it."

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"No but you introduce it first by saying "since the SOE" so in other words you're trying to pull back into the SOE which should not be. I know your intention, Jules. We have to understand that as police officers, we are creatures of law. There are several things that we would like to do to make sure criminals are place where they belong but we cannot do it because we do not have the legal authority."

Jules Vasquez:
"That's why you create an SOE."

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Let me finish. We do not have the legal authority and here you are speaking about that's why you have an SOE, then when we do the SOE, you are the main one criticizing us for doing the SOE so you need to decide your mind what exactly you want to see the police do. I would like to be Channel 7's News Director for one week and make you Commissioner of Police for one week and we see how it goes, how easy the head that bears the crown. But just to go back to what I was saying to you that while there are certain things that we want to get done, it is going to take a little time. I have met with the people of San Ignacio Santa Elena, I have explained to them what we want to do and that process is underway. We're still hoping that the police station for Santa Elena is going to be completed within the one month time frame that we had given the public and we'll be able to house that police station with police officers. We already got a new vehicle, that should be deployed to the area by Monday for the officers to be able to carry out their responsibilities. In the meantime, we have GI3 in that area, they are going the gang investigations and you know the gang investigation are not an overnight investigations. These are investigations that take 3-6 months to be able to gather information to convince a court without reasonable doubt that these are gang members. In the time being, the police officers from SPU and the San Ignacio operation teams are conducting operations, we're detaining people for 48 hours, after 48 we have to let them go, we cannot keep them beyond 48 hours so they're going to look forward to that opportunity again to do what they need to do but we have to make sure that we do our part also to prevent them from doing so."

But could Smith's murder be prevented considering the police knew he was the main suspect? The ComPol said that they aren't bodyguards.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police "Anthony Smith was one of the persons suspected to have been involved in the murder of David Galindo. We knew yes that he was a target but we cannot not and will not be security guard for no criminals so it cannot be that because we know that you are a target, you're accused of killing somebody, now the police will now mind you. It's like rewarding criminals."

Jules Vasquez:
"You did that with the Meighan Brother on Bank Street, there was a checkpoint in front of their house."

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"There you go again trying to mislead the public. The checkpoint that was on Banak Street was put in place during Mr Whylie's tenure as commissioner of police not during my tenure. When I became commissioner, I saw the need, it was an artery that was being used to commit crimes, I decided to leave it there. When I saw that they were doing things and shielding behind the police, I removed it from there. We need to be accurate in our reporting, don't say things that you believe the public is going to want to hear so that you can increase your audience, we must be real and we must be responsible. So again just to completely answer your question, we are not going to provide security for no criminal or no person who we believe are out there perpetuating criminal acts and expect that the police is going to protect them, that is not going to happen."