JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

Jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is as­sur­ing the pub­lic that they are not tar­get­ing any par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE).

The as­sur­ance was giv­en by SoE Gold Com­man­der DCP Suzette Mar­tin dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

“Let me be ab­solute­ly clear on this point; no com­mu­ni­ty is be­ing tar­get­ed. Crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is be­ing tar­get­ed. The TTPS al­so recog­nis­es that the pub­lic ex­pects pro­fes­sion­al­ism, ac­count­abil­i­ty and dis­ci­pline from its of­fi­cers dur­ing this State of Emer­gency.”

Mar­tin said she was aware of re­ports which sug­gest that po­lice op­er­a­tions have im­posed a cur­few dur­ing the lat­est SoE, but said this was not so.

“Let me state clear­ly, there is no un­of­fi­cial cur­few. How­ev­er, un­der emer­gency pow­ers reg­u­la­tions, of­fi­cers are au­tho­rised to con­duct pa­trols, road checks and en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es where in­tel­li­gence in­di­cates a threat to pub­lic safe­ty. These ac­tions are law­ful, nec­es­sary and will con­tin­ue,” she said.

She added: “In ar­eas such as San­gre Grande and oth­er parts of the East­ern Di­vi­sion, the in­creased po­lice pres­ence is based on in­tel­li­gence re­lat­ing to gang move­ment, il­le­gal firearm ac­tiv­i­ty, and emerg­ing crim­i­nal net­works.”

Af­ter the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion had a bomb threat called against it on March 2, there were in­creased po­lice pa­trols in the com­mu­ni­ty and with the SoE com­ing in­to ef­fect a day lat­er, the po­lice pa­trols were in­creased, mak­ing some res­i­dents feel as though they were un­der a cur­few.

Hours af­ter Mar­tin’s com­ment about in­creased po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty in the San­gre Grande area, busi­ness­man and al­leged il­le­gal quar­ry op­er­a­tor, Dan­ny Guer­ra, was gunned down out­side his busi­ness place in that com­mu­ni­ty.

Mar­tin al­so as­sured that the TTPS is en­gag­ing in in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing and had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that crim­i­nals are flee­ing hotspot ar­eas to avoid de­tec­tion.

She re­vealed that so far un­der the new SoE, 373 peo­ple had so far been de­tained and 66 had been charged. And with over 100 peo­ple re­leased at the end of the last SoE and four now re-ar­rest­ed dur­ing the cur­rent one, Mar­tin as­sured that the TTPS is not tar­get­ing those who were re­leased in the pre­vi­ous SoE.

“Sir, we are ar­rest­ing per­sons who dis­rupt com­mu­ni­ties and are caus­ing vi­o­lence in the com­mu­ni­ties. So, I am not go­ing to say I would ar­rest every­body from the last SoE, but the per­sons who are dis­rupt­ing at this time. The per­sons who are dis­rupt­ing the com­mu­ni­ties, those per­sons are be­ing dealt with ac­cord­ing to law.”

The SoE was called to ad­dress in­creased gang ac­tiv­i­ties, and when asked if any of the four peo­ple held from the last co­hort were gang lead­ers, Mar­tin said she could not say whether they are, as en­quiries are on­go­ing.

Asked if there has been any re­duc­tion in the plans of the gangs that spawned the SoE, Mar­tin said: “What I would say is the SoE just start­ed, it’s day ten, so at this time it would be too ear­ly to make a pro­nounce­ment. But in the last SoE, we saw at the be­gin­ning of the SoE, per­sons will maybe try to see how it goes, and they would have their plan of ac­tion. We con­tin­ue our in­ves­ti­ga­tions and we will be do­ing our op­er­a­tions to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens of T&T.”

She said she could not iden­ti­fy the num­ber of gangs that were plot­ting to en­gage in the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties that sparked the SoE.

On Tues­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the US pro­vid­ed a list of per­sons of in­ter­est in the coun­try linked to il­le­gal drugs, guns and vi­o­lence.

The list comes af­ter the coun­try be­came a sig­na­to­ry on the US-led Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC), which US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said would in­volve dead­ly force against the car­tels in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Asked if that list was pro­vid­ed to the TTPS, Mar­tin ad­vised that Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is the best per­son to an­swer that ques­tion.

“The TTPS works to get the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go based on how our in­ter­nal arrange­ment and how we would ap­proach that, I would not be shar­ing that with you or the pub­lic at this time,“ she added when asked if she, as Gold Com­man­der, was go­ing to re­quest it.