Gail Alexan­der

State of emer­gency de­tainees will like­ly be housed at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba, which was start­ed by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, but has nev­er been used. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan an­nounced the de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day as the num­ber of state of emer­gency de­tainees con­tin­ued to climb on Day Sev­en of "Op­er­a­tion Dis­rupt and Dis­man­tle Gangs." Speak­ing at the dai­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry in Port-of-Spain, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs said the to­tal num­ber of peo­ple ar­rest­ed since the sev­en-day ex­er­cise be­gan stood at 684, in­clud­ing 267 on gang-re­lat­ed is­sues. (See box be­low) Gibbs said the sit­u­a­tion had caused the se­ri­ous crime rate to drop to "al­most nil." He said the one homi­cide which oc­curred dur­ing the last week was a do­mes­tic mat­ter.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said: "We're win­ning this war on crime...on day sev­en of the state of emer­gency, we're mov­ing at the ar­rest rate of 100-plus per day, de­spite get­ting off to a slow start." On the State's ca­pac­i­ty to hold those de­tained and ar­rest­ed, Ram­lo­gan said the Gov­ern­ment had iden­ti­fied sites for de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties and was in the process of out­fit­ting them. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy said the sites could hold over 1,000 peo­ple and would be se­cured by po­lice and army forces. Ram­lo­gan said he had asked Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal to see if the Tarou­ba Sta­di­um could be used to house de­tainees. Mooni­lal will re­port back short­ly. Ram­lo­gan said the sta­di­um had al­so been meant to be a tsuna­mi shel­ter.

The sta­di­um, which was due to be com­plet­ed in 2007 in time for the Crick­et World Cup held that year in the re­gion, was start­ed by the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2006. Five years lat­er, the sta­di­um, which holds 15,000 peo­ple, still has not been com­mis­sioned. Dur­ing a June tour of the fa­cil­i­ty, Mooni­lal said the cost had risen from $375 mil­lion to $900 mil­lion and it would like­ly cost around $1.1 bil­lion since the sta­di­um would re­quire sig­nif­i­cant re­sources to con­tin­ue the project as it was over-de­signed. The fa­cil­i­ty has been at a stand­still since 2009. Ini­tial as­sess­ment is that the sta­di­um is a "very fea­si­ble" choice to house de­tainees. Sev­er­al agen­cies in­clud­ing the army will as­sist in the fi­nal de­ci­sion. Ram­lo­gan said yes­ter­day: "For those 'vis­it­ing' these (de­ten­tion) fa­cil­i­ties, we'll be hap­py to ac­com­mo­date you un­til you change your ways."

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy said lo­cal prison of­fi­cials had as­sured that there was room at those lo­ca­tions. Ram­lo­gan warned rel­a­tives of those in­volved in crime that se­cu­ri­ty forces would be widen­ing the net to ex­tend to them. "Whether you are a grand­ma, grand­pa, ajee, ajah .. and you know your grand­son, son or grand­daugh­ter is in­volved in a life of crime....." Ram­lo­gan said. Ram­lo­gan warned that if peo­ple stored items at any part of the home of their rel­a­tives, "in­clud­ing the fowl pen," they could be sub­ject to crim­i­nal charges. Ram­lo­gan said now was the time for grand­par­ents and oth­er rel­a­tives of crim­i­nals to sub­mit in­for­ma­tion and pro­tect them­selves against charges. Sandy said new hot lines set up for the pub­lic to sub­mit in­for­ma­tion are: 800-0699 and 800-0700. Ram­lo­gan, how­ev­er, said cur­few break­ing was one of the sore points of the emer­gency since some peo­ple were not tak­ing it se­ri­ous­ly.

Sandy said peo­ple were us­ing poor ex­cus­es to break the cur­few such as hav­ing to "car­ry mon­ey for their moth­er." So far, 21 peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed for cur­few break­ing. Ram­lo­gan said he was con­sid­er­ing amend­ing the penal­ty for cul­prits. He could not say if or when this would change and what will ap­ply. Ram­lo­gan said the state of emer­gency had re­stored some so­cial equi­lib­ri­um to T&T, es­pe­cial­ly fam­i­ly in­sti­tu­tions. Hos­pi­tal work­ers were breath­ing a sigh of re­lief at the drop in stab wounds and road traf­fic ac­ci­dents at ca­su­al­ty de­part­ments, he said. "Wives are hap­py to have their hus­bands at home. A woman said her two sons were spend­ing din­ner time at home. Fam­i­lies are eat­ing to­geth­er. This state of emer­gency has had a lot of pos­i­tives," Ram­lo­gan added.