Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds is call­ing on cit­i­zens to re­port any strangers they ob­serve in their neigh­bour­hoods.

He said in­tel­li­gence sug­gests that crim­i­nals are look­ing for new places where they can lie low. “Now that the po­lice is (sic) on the move, the crim­i­nals are al­so on the move, and they are look­ing for places around Trinidad and To­ba­go where they can hide out to es­cape the gaze of law en­force­ment,” Hinds said.

He re­vealed this dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate on a gov­ern­ment mo­tion for a three-month ex­ten­sion to the State of Emer­gency (SoE), which was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Mon­day night.

“In all com­mu­ni­ties, we have a good idea of who is who be­cause they may very well be a very dan­ger­ous clip, run­ning from wher­ev­er they were and tak­ing refuge in your neigh­bour­hood,” he ex­plained.

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter warned law-abid­ing cit­i­zens that they could be­come vic­tims de­spite their lo­ca­tion since these crim­i­nals’ de­sire for mon­ey has not stopped. He said this was why the Gov­ern­ment treats crime and vi­o­lence as a pub­lic health con­cern, be­cause it recog­nis­es that every­one has a role to play in curb­ing crime.

“Every teacher, every doc­tor, every NGO, every re­li­gious body, all min­istries, all of re­gion, all-of-coun­try, all-of-gov­ern­ment ap­proach,” he said.

How­ev­er, the shad­ow Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ques­tioned if the SoE is hav­ing such an im­pact on crim­i­nals. Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Mooni­lal la­belled the SoE as use­less and a knee-jerk re­ac­tion by the Gov­ern­ment.

“They want to show that they are do­ing some­thing that the mur­der rate will dip slight­ly by five hu­man be­ings per month or some­thing like that,” Mooni­lal ex­pressed.

Sta­tis­tics re­leased by the TTPS showed that since the State of Emer­gency was de­clared on De­cem­ber 30, 2024, there were 13 mur­ders, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 per cent less than the 23 for the same pe­ri­od in the month of Jan­u­ary in 2024. Mooni­lal said these fig­ures showed that the SoE was not work­ing.

“An at­tor­ney-at-law gunned down af­ter de­liv­er­ing a ser­mon in church in the church­yard, home in­va­sion mur­ders, gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders, dou­ble and triple in a State of Emer­gency. You should be com­ing with new pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives, new tech­nol­o­gy, new process­es for war­rants, any­thing like that keep­ing you back. You ought not to be deny­ing cit­i­zens their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights in an elec­tion year, un­der the guise of deal­ing with a gang leader and a next gang leader,” Mooni­lal said.

But Min­is­ter Hinds coun­tered, say­ing sta­tis­tics showed that the SoE was do­ing well in re­duc­ing crime in this coun­try. Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, there has been an 83 per cent drop in shoot­ings and wound­ing from 23 dur­ing the same pe­ri­od of 2024 to four for the year so far. Hinds added that there was a 75 per cent drop in rob­beries from 67 in the first 13 days of Jan­u­ary to 17 as of Mon­day.

Lar­ce­ny mo­tor ve­hi­cles saw a 59 per cent drop from 27 in 2024 to 11 on Mon­day. The min­is­ter said they have about 137 peo­ple in cus­tody. Lar­ce­ny mo­tor ve­hi­cles saw a 59 per cent drop from 27 in 2024 to 11 on Mon­day. The min­is­ter said an es­ti­mat­ed 137 peo­ple are in cus­tody out of the ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500 ar­rest­ed dur­ing the SoE and sol­diers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force have so far con­duct­ed 104 pa­trols in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties.