En Friday of last week, the day after a person was stabbed to death in broad daylight in El Lago Uribe, about twenty uniformed policemen accompanied by dogs and others, were present all day at the scene , searching passers-by, checking their records and providing security to citizens.
Of course, any action by the Police in a place like El Lago, which has fallen into the hands of crime, micro-trafficking, prostitution and homelessness, is good because it restores hope to the citizens and residents of the place, and reminds the bandits that there is still authority in the city.
However, it is of little use that today El Lago is full of police, that they clean it of the presence of so much undesirable, that they verify the identity of so many suspicious people that remain in the place and even that they collect all the dirt that the abandonment accumulates. and official negligence; and that tomorrow there won’t be a single policeman and everything will return to the anarchy of before, as is evidently happening now.
On Saturday, El Lago was once again in the hands of robbers, drug dealers, prostitutes, street dwellers, madmen, beggars and every criminal waiting for an opportunity to commit their misdeeds. .
The Lake, like the Plaza de Bolívar, like Ciudad Victoria, like the Guadalupe Zapata, or like any other place in the city, need the permanent presence, day and night and on weekends, of the Police to prevent them from become dens of crime and invisible places for citizens.
Because if the appearance of the Police is, as happened on Friday, sporadic and for a while, the “owners” of the place simply choose themselves around the corner and wait for the police officers to finish with the review of documents and with the eventual requisition of a few street vendors accused of selling narcotics, and they leave, to return to their place and their adventures.
It is much better for the rescue of El Lago and to restore the role it played for years in the Pereiran community, that the Police have fewer agents, but that they are permanently in place, especially at night when people who work late and students who work at night, walk to their homes or take public transportation.
It is good, then, that the Police have remembered that they are still stationed in Pereira and that when they are present, they restore security and tranquility to the inhabitants of the sector; but it is essential that this be done permanently and, in places like El Lago, both during the day and at night.