An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin and ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) yes­ter­day sought to en­cour­age of­fi­cers whose morale might be low. Ben­jamin ac­knowl­edged that the first triple homi­cide, which oc­curred in Gua­napo on Sat­ur­day, might have ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed the spir­it of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

“Safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty is a jour­ney, and there­fore it is quite pos­si­ble, as we con­tin­ue along this jour­ney to en­sure that T&T be­comes safe once again, that we are go­ing to get some highs and lows,” he said.

There are go­ing to be times that we are go­ing to get some good days and some bad days, but nev­er­the­less, I want to as­sure you that the TTPS re­mains fo­cused on the tasks that are ahead.” Se­nior of­fi­cers said they would not let up on the hunt for the peo­ple who killed Ani­cia James, 47, her broth­er Anslem James, 49, and her com­mon-law hus­band, Mitchell Fran­cois, 30.

They said the in­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing guid­ed by da­ta-dri­ven in­tel­li­gence. Ani­cia’s six-year-old son, who was shot in both legs dur­ing the in­ci­dent, was hos­pi­talised in sta­ble con­di­tion up to yes­ter­day. Not­ing the 59 homi­cides record­ed for the year so far, com­pared to 78 last year and 99 in 2023, Ben­jamin said, “When we talk about lives, it clear­ly shows we are head­ing in the right di­rec­tion. Cer­tain­ly, we are not sat­is­fied, but we con­tin­ue to put the ef­fort in.”

He re­newed the call for the pub­lic to part­ner with the po­lice to fight crime and make T&T safer. Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions Curt Si­mon said 88 op­er­a­tions had been con­duct­ed over 48 hours across both is­lands, with 63 peo­ple tar­get­ed, of whom 56 had been ar­rest­ed. Four firearms were al­so re­cov­ered along with as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion.

He as­sured, “These are per­sons who we have de­ter­mined and iden­ti­fied as those who are bent on caus­ing may­hem in this coun­try, caus­ing you, the cit­i­zen­ry, to feel in­se­cure, caus­ing you to feel un­safe.” Since the State of Emer­gency took ef­fect on De­cem­ber 30, the po­lice have car­ried out more than 3,000 op­er­a­tions, com­plet­ed over 2,244 ar­rests, and re­cov­ered 110 firearms and al­most 3,000 as­sort­ed rounds of am­mu­ni­tion along with a quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics.

Com­ment­ing on the triple mur­der, Si­mon said, “Our hearts re­al­ly go out to the rel­a­tives and loved ones of those who have suf­fered a loss of life.” He added, “We will leave no stone un­turned to bring this to a res­o­lu­tion.” Re­spond­ing to claims that the po­lice had not re­spond­ed to the in­ci­dent prompt­ly, Si­mon said of­fi­cers had ar­rived at the scene of Sat­ur­day’s shoot­ing with­in three min­utes of the killings.