Gail Alexan­der ??

Fifty-six gang mem­bers were among 117 peo­ple ar­rest­ed in op­er­a­tions by se­cu­ri­ty forces be­tween Tues­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing, ac­cord­ing to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs.Gibbs gave the sta­tis­tics at a me­dia brief­ing at River­side Plaza yes­ter­day where he al­so ex­plained his re­cent ab­sence.The brief­ing was held at the plaza cur­rent­ly oc­cu­pied by the Spe­cial An­ti Crime Unit (SAUTT) which the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion has giv­en or­ders to dis­band.SAUTT's tenure ends next Wednes­day, Au­gust 31. The unit will be ab­sorbed in­to the re­vamped Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).Gibbs said 48 oth­er peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for drug of­fences, four for firearms and one in con­nec­tion with homi­cide.

Eight oth­er per­sons were ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with se­ri­ous crimes.Gibbs said two firearms, 18 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and a car­tridge were seized.Asked about the per­ceive fail­ure of the state of emer­gency to net any "big fish", Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy said in the "not too dis­tant fu­ture," the per­cep­tion that on­ly "small fry" were be­ing nabbed, would change."We have round­ed up peo­ple, in­clud­ing gang lead­ers," Sandy added.Say­ing the po­lice were in­struct­ed not to use more force than is nec­es­sary in the con­duct of their du­ties, Sandy added: "They must be firm and de­ter­mined. I'm say­ing this to al­lay fears by cit­i­zens that while some of your con­sti­tu­tion­al rights might be tak­en away tem­porar­i­ly, the in­tent is to make you more com­fort­able and not to in­crease any in­con­ve­nience that you are al­ready un­der."

He said there were no homi­cides in the pe­ri­od of the state of emer­gency and Gov­ern­ment hoped to keep it that way.Chief of De­fence Staff Brigadier Ken­rick Ma­haraj said three peo­ple were de­tained in To­ba­go with il­le­gal drugs.He said De­fence Forces had con­duct­ed 26 op­er­a­tions and two joint­ly with po­lice in the north and south­ern "hot spots".He said the Air and Coast Guard were al­so on pa­trol, par­tic­u­lar­ly at east and north coast bor­ders, and ground forces were mon­i­tor­ing ar­eas not un­der cur­few and ve­hic­u­lar move­ments around T&T in the event gang lead­ers seek to shift "op­er­a­tions."

Ma­haraj con­firmed that a spe­cial op­er­a­tion was now in train at Toma­to Trace, Diego Mar­tin, where it was re­port­ed on Tues­day that two fam­i­ly mem­bers were at­tacked and robbed by per­sons at 4 am on Mon­day dur­ing the cur­few in that "hot spot" area.When asked about that in­ci­dent at Tues­day's me­dia brief­ing, then act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams was un­able to ver­i­fy it.Sandy said the cur­few pass is­sue has been "ti­died up" and most of those who re­quest­ed had re­ceived them.

AG to mem­bers: Now is time to blow whis­tle

Gang mem­bers who want to get out of the "busi­ness" should "blow the whis­tle" on their gang col­leagues to the se­cu­ri­ty forces, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan urged yes­ter­day."Now is the time to res­cue your­self if you share in­for­ma­tion about your gang and we'll be able to snuff out the lifeblood of that gang so you can have a life of your own," Ram­lo­gan ad­vised would-be "whis­tle blow­ers"."Now is your time to help your­self and to make a dif­fer­ence to your­self," he added.

Ram­lo­gan said all in­for­ma­tion would "be held in strictest con­fi­dence."He said a Na­tion­al Hot­line was be­ing es­tab­lished with­in the next 24 hours for the pub­lic to give po­lice in­for­ma­tion and tips.He said some tips have been hoax­es, in­clud­ing a re­cent one in which po­lice were called out to in­ves­ti­gate the false hint that a bus had over­turned on the high­way and loot­ing had been tak­ing place.