More than 100 officers, armed and unarmed, will be on patrol New Year's Eve to ensure that the public has a safe night.

Police Commissioner Michael DeSilva held a press conference yesterday to inform the community of the service's plans for the holiday.

"I thought it would be important judging by the volume of events that are planned for New Year's Eve coupled with some of the apprehension felt in the community that it would be important to give to public a view of what our plan is for New Year's Eve. We know that it's going to be a busy evening from east to west to central. There are events on at Front Street, Dockyard and St. George's."

Mr. DeSilva continued: "First is to say that our intention is always to provide good and visible patrols in the public and get out and make sure that we're seen. We will certainly have enough officers on the ground to deal with incidents of public disorder. It will be an excess of 100 officers. We will have officers in some of the troubled area and that's nothing new. We have had those officers there during the Christmas period.

"We have to consider because of the volume of events, everyone will be travelling on the roads. We'll have a very robust enforcement on the roads. We'll help as much as possible to make the roads safe and the events safe. We have over 100 officers on patrol on New Year's Eve itself. The operation will carry-out over the weekend. We'll scale things back on Monday."

Mr. DeSilva also laid out the service's six intentions, these include maintaining a high police presence with a view to maintaining order and preventing crime, prevent and where necessary respond to incidents of public disorder, and provide an immediate firearms response capacity to shooting incidents, provide highly effective visible patrols, particularly in troubled neighbourhoods to promote public confidence and community intelligence.

The Police will conduct proactive traffic enforcement patrols with particular emphasis on impaired driving offences and assist with the safe flow of traffic around scheduled road closures in place to facilitate public events and parades."

Asked what he would say to those looking for trouble, Mr. DeSilva said: "What I would say it's not mean to be confrontational. Putting out officers is to make sure that we discourage people from doing those things and to encourage the public to come out for New Year's Eve.

"It's to recognise and acknowledge and appreciate that the communities are working hard to restore some peace and tranquility back to the Island. The fact that we have had a quiet period is a good thing for Bermuda as an opportunity to reflect."

Hamilton Mayor Charles Gosling welcomed the initiatives and said: "Hopefully that presence will mean that we have a peaceful and meaningful New Year's Eve and the only noise will be from the stage at number one shed."