Gail Alexan­der

Twen­ty four hours af­ter two of their "boys" were ar­rest­ed at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel last Fri­day morn­ing, Sea Lots East yes­ter­day was grave qui­et, al­most serene­ly so. The two al­leged gang lead­ers, iden­ti­fied as Cedric Burke and Keon Baine, are re­port­ed to have orig­i­nat­ed from the small, de­pressed sea­side pock­et of Port-of-Spain, south of the Cen­tral Mar­ket. Fol­low­ing the ar­rest at the Hy­att, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan con­firmed they came from East Port-of-Spain. Port-of-Spain South Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, mon­i­tor­ing how the state of emer­gency was af­fect­ing con­stituents, yes­ter­day ac­knowl­edged re­ports the duo were from her con­stituen­cy.

Now, mid way through the state of emer­gency and af­ter Fri­day's ar­rest of the Hy­att duo, Sea Lots East yes­ter­day was a place where no­body was in­ter­est­ed in al­low­ing a jour­nal­ist to take pho­tographs of them or give their full names for in­ter­views. Young or old. One woman warned about ask­ing for di­rec­tions, or peo­ple, which would flag the ques­tion­er as a stranger to the area. Peo­ple peered from ve­hi­cles watch­ing those be­ing in­ter­viewed. No­body was ac­knowl­edg­ing Burke and Bain as their "hoss" or their "dawg" (street talk for part­ner). But a bare­backed youth on the east side of Pi­o­neer Dri­ve and his friends were can­did about the state of emer­gency (SOE).

Mov­ing out of reach of the tape recorder, he said: "The po­lice do­ing dey wuk, but dey rolling dras­tic. They is be do­ing re­al out­ta time things. "On Tues­day, in the street on dat (south east) block they kick down the peo­ple door and take their gold and $8,000. Peo­ple have to watch they­self with po­lice touch­ing peo­ple thing." Ms MJ, 30s-ish in tight jeans and red top, had oth­er is­sues. She said: "Sin­gle moth­ers have to earn mon­ey in the state of emer­gency too. I hear Kam­la say she have ting in place, but that must be for big busi­ness-what about sin­gle moth­ers who have to come out at night to make their dol­lars?

"Is school time. I price my kids' books and it to­tal $7,000. When you can't come out at night-and dat is how some sin­gle moth­ers have to make it out here-what you go do? A whole week work you lose!" MJ added: "When I work some­times I pick up $2,000 or $3,000. Now you can't work at night as you have to lock up and go in. It un­fair to res­i­dents. I know the po­lice do­ing they job, but you have to un­der­stand it have poor peo­ple out here. We ent like big busi­ness who could make back the mon­ey we lose this week." Joel V, a well pre­served 60s-ish man who has lived in Sea Lots since 1957 said: "I en­joy­ing it (SOE). I go and lie down af­ter I lis­ten to the news and I sleep at ease, in peace."

"I know the law mov­ing ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion they have and who they ha­rass­ing or look­ing for is be­cause they know what they do­ing. I en­joy­ing it, man. When the night come in the past month, every night you hear­ing gun­shots in George Hill and Pic­ton Hill. Every night like Viet­nam. Now I sleep­ing in peace. I ent mind if it go on for the next month." Joel added: "Who against this cur­few is peo­ple who don't think for next week, next month or next year. Those who liv­ing fast, they dy­ing young. They don't care about next month, next year-sim­ple as that. "As long as you think­ing about a fu­ture and you want to live in­to your old age, is one thing. But some of them don't want that-they liv­ing too fast." Mr V added.

Ir­win aka "Rush" who has lived at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve all of his 39 years added: "Soon­er or lat­er it (SOE) was com­ing be­cause peo­ple couldn't walk the street safe. Gov­ern­ment had­da do some­thing. You can't blame them or the po­lice... I just hope af­ter this every­thing work out for the best." East Dry Riv­er coun­cil­lor Ayesha Wells sup­ports her burgess­es-four of whom were mur­dered in one day last month-as well as prop­er pro­ce­dures in the SOE. Heav­i­ly preg­nant Wells-due to en­ter labour to­day-was in Sea Lots East with the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day.

Wells said: "I'm all for crack­ing down on gangs and crime but the man­ner in which it is done, and if we're catch­ing those we need to, is my con­cern. I'm bring­ing my third child in­to the world and deeply con­cerned about what is hap­pen­ing with the African male lo­cal­ly. "I hope we don't ar­rest the wrong peo­ple and we get the right one. I don't ex­pect the big fish will be net­ted be­cause they could jump on a plane and go any­where. So when you say they catch 'big fish' at the Hy­att it doesn't add up." Wells said that she hoped the state of emer­gency brings re­sults, but she not­ed that it was al­so cre­at­ing much dis­com­fort. "One of my burgess­es re­port­ed po­lice kick­ing down doors in Basilon Street and tak­ing peo­ple ran­dom­ly. One youth with no known record was tak­en in Man­go Rose, we learned. An­oth­er told me po­lice seem to come with a 'quo­ta' to han­dle."