Fifty-one po­lice de­tec­tives were award­ed for their ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty in dis­man­tling a num­ber of gangs with­in the coun­try un­der the An­ti-Gang Leg­is­la­tion, dur­ing a brief cer­e­mo­ny held to­day, Thurs­day 19th No­vem­ber 2020, at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial re­lease from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the award is based on suc­cess in dis­man­tling three ma­jor gangs with­in the last three months—rep­re­sent­ing a to­tal of 18 gang mem­bers be­ing charged un­der the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion from the North­ern, North-East­ern, Port-of-Spain, and West­ern Di­vi­sions.

The awards were pre­sent­ed to the four Di­vi­sion­al team lead­ers on be­half of the 51 of­fi­cers.

The TTPS re­ports that a to­tal of 36 per­sons have been charged for the year thus far, and 88 per­sons for the last six years, for gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties.

Speak­ing at the cer­e­mo­ny, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, con­grat­u­lat­ed the of­fi­cers for their ex­tra­or­di­nary ef­forts in “peg­ging back gangs tremen­dous­ly”, which he said has re­sult­ed in a ma­jor re­duc­tion in gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties and mur­ders.

“Cur­rent­ly, the coun­try is on a tra­jec­to­ry of a re­duc­tion of over 115 mur­ders when com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year,” Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith re­ports, “which may re­sult in the mur­der toll stay­ing well be­low 400.”

He at­trib­ut­es this achieve­ment to good in­tel­li­gence and work­ing struc­tures, and the de­tec­tives’ ded­i­ca­tion, dis­ci­pline and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the An­ti-Gang Unit.

In en­cour­ag­ing the de­tec­tives to re­main hon­est, brave and trust­wor­thy, in their ser­vice to God and coun­try, Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith as­sert­ed:

“With the con­tin­ued, ag­gres­sive ef­forts of the de­tec­tives, the TTPS will be cer­tain to clip the wings of crim­i­nals.”

Mean­while, DCP (Ag) In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob, ex­plained that the An­ti-Gang Unit is now link­ing with the TTPS’ Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau to en­hance the ap­proach in in­ves­ti­gat­ing gangs and crime en­ter­prise ac­tiv­i­ties.

“The in­tent is to max­imise the use of the Civ­il As­sets and Un­ex­plained Wealth Act 2019 in in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” he said, “which will en­sure that all per­sons in­volved in gangs and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties will be made to face the full brunt of the law.”

DCP Ja­cob not­ed the ap­proach al­so will be cou­pled with the use of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Act to treat with white col­lar crime and oth­er sim­i­lar of­fences.