Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is set to be out in full force dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin yes­ter­day as­sured the pub­lic that safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty are top pri­or­i­ties.

With over 70 ar­rests al­ready made as the Gov­ern­ment en­forces State of Emer­gency (SoE) reg­u­la­tions, the po­lice are tak­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to any­one at­tempt­ing to dis­rupt the Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties.

“We are go­ing to be in our num­bers. We are go­ing to be look­ing at all those pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers. We al­ready have about 70 or more per­sons who have been ar­rest­ed, and we are look­ing for oth­ers be­cause we are say­ing that no one is to come and dis­rupt the peace and tran­quil­i­ty of these events,” said Ben­jamin.

The SOE reg­u­la­tions have grant­ed ad­di­tion­al pow­ers to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, al­low­ing for a strate­gic and en­hanced law en­force­ment re­sponse. Ben­jamin ex­pressed con­fi­dence in achiev­ing op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence and high­light­ed the de­ploy­ment of of­fi­cers across var­i­ous units.

“One of the things that we con­tin­ue to do is seek to in­crease our de­ploy­ment. So, we even have spe­cial regime of­fi­cers com­ing on board. We have the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice that will be com­ing on board, along with tran­sit of­fi­cers. We al­so have traf­fic war­dens help­ing us. Again, be­cause of the SoE, we have the De­fence Force hav­ing that pow­er for us and al­so hav­ing the same pow­ers as po­lice of­fi­cers,” he stat­ed.

Ben­jamin as­sured the pub­lic that any of­fend­ers would be dealt with de­ci­sive­ly, re­in­forc­ing the mes­sage that the events are off-lim­its for trou­ble­mak­ers.

“Any­one found com­mit­ting such an of­fence, we will be deal­ing with them very de­ci­sive­ly. But right now, we are say­ing these events are off-lim­its for those per­sons. But for peo­ple who want to come and tru­ly en­joy the sea­son, we are say­ing feel free to come be­cause safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty are our pri­or­i­ty.”

He al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of re­build­ing trust be­tween the pub­lic and law en­force­ment, not­ing the pos­i­tive re­cep­tion he re­ceived from cit­i­zens dur­ing the 2025 Ju­nior Pa­rade of the Bands at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

“I con­tin­ue to feel re­al­ly com­fort­ed know­ing that per­sons are reach­ing out to the po­lice and see­ing the pos­i­tive ap­proach giv­en to the po­lice, even as we con­tin­ue to do these op­er­a­tions. And to­day was no ex­cep­tion. Meet­ing the peo­ple is what I love to do, and it was re­al­ly good to see that pos­i­tive re­cep­tion from the pub­lic,” Ben­jamin said.

En­cour­ag­ing co­op­er­a­tion, the com­mis­sion­er called for stronger com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships in crime pre­ven­tion, aim­ing to re­duce both crime and the fear of crime.

“We want to en­cour­age the pub­lic to work with us. We need their sup­port, and we want to work with them. There­fore, as we con­tin­ue to build com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and strength­en our part­ner­ship, we be­lieve that we will not just re­duce crime, but we will re­duce the fear of crime, which is so im­por­tant at this time.”