Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist pas­tor Clive Dot­tin is claim­ing that as­sas­sins, gang lead­ers and cor­rupt mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar busi­ness­men are be­ing pro­tect­ed by politi­cians in the coun­try.

Speak­ing at the T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) Crime Talks and Ham­per Dri­ve at the Mara­bel­la Bas­ket­ball Court along the old train line yes­ter­day, Dot­tin said even with a State of Emer­gency (SoE), the on­ly way crime will be im­pact­ed is if white-col­lar crim­i­nals are al­so tar­get­ed.

“We can­not have par­lia­men­tar­i­ans frater­nising with gang lead­ers and crooks and demons. That has to stop. I call up­on the po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of the two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties in the coun­try, you can­not have peo­ple in your ranks who en­gage in ac­tiv­i­ty that af­firms gangs and drug deal­ing. That is wrong,” Dot­tin said. 

“You can­not fight crime and pro­tect as­sas­sins. You can­not fight crime and take mon­ey at elec­tion time for cam­paign pro­mo­tions ... And that is what is hurt­ing us.”

Dot­tin, 75, not­ed that when­ev­er crime came up, peo­ple usu­al­ly on­ly re­fer to “poor fel­las,” the blue-col­lar crim­i­nals.

How­ev­er, to make a dif­fer­ence in crime, he said, “We must have a vi­sion one day to be able to ar­rest the white-col­lar crim­i­nals. Those who bring­ing in the co­caine, is not the poor boys on the train line bring­ing in the co­caine and those who bring­ing in the guns.”

Claim­ing that he asked two state se­cu­ri­ty an­a­lysts about white- col­lar crim­i­nals, those bring­ing in AK15s and co­caine, he said he was told they were un­touch­able. 

Say­ing the virus of cor­rup­tion has spread to the army and coast guard, he said, “So we are sur­round­ed by a sea of cor­rup­tion and I tell peo­ple any­time you see a cor­rupt po­lice or sol­dier or coast­guard man, you will dis­cov­er that be­hind him is a lawyer, be­hind him is a busi­ness­man, and some­times a politi­cian.”

Com­ment­ing on the mur­der of state pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor on De­cem­ber 31, 2024, he said, “I am say­ing this with­out any fear of con­tra­dic­tion, the Gov­ern­ment did not pro­vide any se­cu­ri­ty for that guy and he is a guy pros­e­cut­ing gang lead­ers.”

Dot­tin said he had known Hec­tor for 10 years as they be­longed to the Caribbean Re­li­gious Lib­er­ty As­so­ci­a­tion. 

“You no­tice up to now since he has died, not a Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive, they did not come to the fu­ner­al and has not said one word about him. Let me tell you why...We are pro­tect­ing as­sas­sins in the coun­try who have po­lit­i­cal and busi­ness con­nec­tions and that is why the state has not said one word about my church mem­ber Ran­dall Hec­tor, who was pre­pared to die.”

He said Hec­tor knew that by pros­e­cut­ing gang lead­ers his life was at risk but he ac­cept­ed that be­cause he felt that God had called him to make a dif­fer­ence in this so­ci­ety. 

Al­so speak­ing at the func­tion, In­sp Mark Mo­hammed, of the Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion, lament­ed that so­ci­ety was lack­ing love.

As­sur­ing res­i­dents that the po­lice were not against them, he said the po­lice want to work with law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, but crim­i­nals need to be wary.

“We are com­ing for you,” Mo­hammed said.

Pledg­ing to con­tin­ue vis­it­ing and sup­port­ing peo­ple in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties, TTSI­DA pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son again ap­pealed for sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.