With just days to go be­fore the peak of Car­ni­val 2025, Gold Com­man­der ACP Richard Smith is urg­ing mas­quer­aders and par­ty­go­ers to en­joy the cel­e­bra­tions re­spon­si­bly, re­mind­ing them that “Car­ni­val is not all” and they must be able to walk the streets with their “heads held high” af­ter the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day night dur­ing the Medi­um Bands Panora­ma fi­nals in To­ba­go, he sent a warn­ing against reck­less be­hav­iour, say­ing that while po­lice will be out in full force, of­fi­cers can­not be every­where at all times.

Smith, who heads the Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion and Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions, said the po­lice were in a strong po­si­tion for Car­ni­val 2025, hav­ing held mul­ti­ple meet­ings with stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing band lead­ers, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), and var­i­ous se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

But he asked par­tic­i­pants to have re­spon­si­ble fun.

Smith told Guardian Me­dia, “Car­ni­val is not all. You must be able to walk the streets with your head held high even af­ter the car­ni­val. So all the at­ti­tudes and ridicu­lous be­hav­iour peo­ple want to get on with, you’ll have to live with your­self af­ter­wards. If you put your­self in dan­ger, we may not be there all the time be­cause we can­not be om­nipresent.”

He as­sured that the TTPS was well-pre­pared. “We have had sev­er­al pre-Car­ni­val events thus far. We have not had any ma­jor in­ci­dents oc­cur­ring at any of these events. You know, we are al­so well pre­pared or in a good po­si­tion for Car­ni­val 2025. Our di­vi­sion com­man­ders have been briefed. We have held sev­er­al meet­ings with our stake­hold­ers, both in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal. We are in a good po­si­tion.”

He shared that pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies are al­so be­ing brought in to as­sist with res­i­den­tial and in­dus­tri­al es­tate pa­trols.

Smith al­so asked rev­ellers not to dance on the po­lice but to re­spect the of­fi­cers on pa­trol, say­ing that while Car­ni­val is a time of rev­el­ry, “good sense must pre­vail.”