First Cit­i­zens is one of sev­er­al com­mer­cial en­ti­ties that have shut down their Port-of-Spain of­fices amid protests to­day.

The bank said that its Park Street Branch and the In­de­pen­dence Square Com­plex which hous­es the In­de­pen­dence Square Branch, Cred­it Card and Elec­tron­ic Bank­ing Cen­tres, are tem­porar­i­ly closed for the re­main­der of the day.

It has ad­vised cus­tomers to vis­it any oth­er con­ve­nient­ly lo­cat­ed branch or use the on­line bank­ing and elec­tron­ic ser­vices.

The protests has al­so re­sult­ed in the clo­sure of some gov­ern­ment of­fices and sev­er­al com­mer­cial en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing food out­lets.

Thou­sands have been turned away from en­ter­ing the city, from as far as Cou­va where po­lice ques­tioned dri­vers about their des­ti­na­tion be­fore ad­vis­ing them not to pro­ceed.

No ve­hi­cles were al­lowed past the Mar­itime Fly­over.

The protests fol­lowed the shoot­ing deaths of three men by po­lice in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia on Sat­ur­day.

The men held their hands in the air mo­ments be­fore they were shot.

Po­lice in­sist that one of the men, who was out­is­de the ve­hi­cle with his hands in the air, re­turned to the ve­hi­cle and pulled a gun on an of­fi­cer, lead­ing them to open fire.

The protests start­ed ear­ly in the morn­ing and spead across East Port-of-Spain, be­fore spilling over in­to oth­er parts of the coun­try.

There were fiery protests by the NP Fly­over, by Co­conut Dri­ve, Mor­vant, in Clifton Hill where a derelict ve­hi­cle and car were set afire, at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Sealots, at Bel­mont Val­ley Road on the cor­ner of Dun­can and Prince Streets (at the be­gin­ning of Laven­tille

Road) and at the cor­ner of Prince & Pic­cadil­ly Streets.

Protests al­so broke out on Nel­son & Prince Street, Link Road, Mal­ick, Ob­ser­va­to­ry Street, at the cor­ner of 6th & 7th Av­enue, Barataria and Nel­son & Prince Streets.

Po­lice have raised the alert lev­el to red.

Loud ex­plo­sions were re­port­ed at the Tokyo Pa­n­yard on Pash­ley Street, John John & in the Beetham Area.

Video showed peo­ple bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds.

Sev­er­al ar­eas were im­pass­able up to this af­ter­noon, in­clud­ing Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Sea Lots on both the east and west­bound lanes and at the Spree Si­mon com­plex in Laven­tille.

There was al­so a block­age at Pash­ley Street and the Beetham High­way in the vicin­i­ty of the land­fill on both east and west­bound lanes.