Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has vowed to re­spond quick­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to quell any at­tempts by peo­ple to es­ca­late gang-re­lat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in this coun­try. Grif­fith and oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers of the TTPS de­tained sev­er­al “per­sons of in­ter­est” on Fri­day night af­ter alarm­ing and threat­en­ing mes­sages be­gan to cir­cu­late on so­cial me­dia that a peace ac­cord agreed to in mid-2020 by war­ring gangs was about to ex­pire and that mem­bers were arm­ing them­selves to en­gage law en­force­ment.

Grif­fith, ac­knowl­edg­ing the pan­ic and fear the ru­mours had cre­at­ed among cit­i­zens, is­sued a press re­lease through the TTPS on Sat­ur­day.

He said soon af­ter be­ing bom­bard­ed with ques­tions from the pub­lic seek­ing to ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion, Act­ing Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Op­er­a­tions Joanne Archie met with var­i­ous spe­cialised and in­tel­li­gence units. The units in­clud­ed Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), Mul­ti Op­tion­al Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPS), the an­ti-ter­ror­ist unit, and In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), POS CID, all First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers of POSD, the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch, and the POS Task­force.

Of­fi­cers moved in­to cer­tain ar­eas and de­tained peo­ple for ques­tion­ing. They were tak­en to the Besson Street and St Joseph po­lice sta­tions where Grif­fith is­sued stern warn­ings to them that the "TTPS will not tol­er­ate any plans among groups to cause any may­hem and de­struc­tion."

Grif­fith, seek­ing to re­as­sure cit­i­zens, stat­ed in the re­lease, "The CoP made it quite clear that if the mes­sages cir­cu­lat­ing had any truth, the TTPS will move swift­ly to take down any at­tempts to es­ca­late any gang-re­lat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty that brings in­con­ve­nience to the pub­lic."

He re­mind­ed the in­di­vid­u­als ar­rest­ed that at­tempts made at the end of June 2020 to dis­rupt the coun­try were met with im­me­di­ate re­sis­tance by the TTPS.

As a re­sult of the mes­sages which were cir­cu­lat­ed on Fri­day, the CoP said the TTPS had put cer­tain mea­sures in place should any at­tempts be made by gang mem­bers to cre­ate prob­lems.

In a pub­lished piece in the Sun­day Guardian in No­vem­ber 2020, sta­tis­tics in­di­cat­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary to Sep­tem­ber 2019 there was a to­tal of 392 mur­ders, of which 142 were said to be gang-re­lat­ed. For the same pe­ri­od in 2020, 301 mur­ders were record­ed, of which 101 were said to be gang-re­lat­ed.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist: Five failed at­tempts by gangs to desta­bilise T&T

Com­ment­ing on the mes­sage that was cir­cu­lat­ed via What­sApp, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira claimed it had em­anat­ed from "those who have been dis­ad­van­taged by the new or­der."

He said, "To date, those who have been dis­ad­van­taged have made five con­cert­ed at­tempts for the tit-for-tat killings to recom­mence in gang­land."

Figueira said the term ‘new or­der’ was coined on June 30, 2020, aris­ing out of the demon­stra­tions against po­lice vi­o­lence that moved through var­i­ous stages of gang­land that were sup­pos­ed­ly at war with each oth­er.

Figueira said with gang­land ef­fec­tive­ly com­ing to­geth­er mid last year, and with the mar­i­jua­na mar­ket now be­ing over-sup­plied, "The cleans­ing con­tin­ues with tar­get­ed elim­i­na­tion but no tit-for-tat war..."

He added, "Those who are not ben­e­fit­ing from this or­der, those who are ex­clud­ed, have made five con­cert­ed at­tempts to recom­mence the tit-for-tat and the mes­sage re­ferred to above is just an­oth­er at­tempt."

Figueira claimed pre­vi­ous at­tempts to trig­ger all-out gang wars had failed "be­cause there was a dis­ci­pline in place."

He de­scribed the pre­vi­ous ef­forts as dra­mat­ic fail­ures and said, "The What­sApp mes­sage is an in­di­ca­tion of their frus­tra­tion," since they are now "writ­ing cheques they can­not cash."

Asked if he felt the pub­lic should dis­re­gard the sen­ti­ments ex­pressed in the mes­sage, Figueira said it was meant to "in­stil fear and trep­i­da­tion."

He said based on the failed at­tempts to de­liv­er, it was very very un­like­ly they can de­liv­er.

BOX

The mes­sage that was cir­cu­lat­ed via What­sApp on Jan­u­ary 15

WAR AT THE DOORSTEPS OF POS, "NO MORE PEACE" SAYS GANG LEAD­ERS

Fol­low­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion for to­tal peace by in­fa­mous "com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers" of the Port-of-Spain dis­trict some­time in Ju­ly 2020, there is in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest that such oath has de­rived to a point of ex­pi­ra­tion. *Kyle George aka Rebel 6* was mur­dered short­ly there­after such de­c­la­ra­tion for his dis­heart­ened views to­wards any peace treaty. In­for­ma­tion al­so sug­gest that such no­tion for peace was an act of sen­sa­tion­al­ism and has ran its course. At present, a war brews over the streets if Port-of-Spain, pro­vok­ing by na­ture via sev­er­al lo­cal artistes whom are al­leged­ly af­fil­i­at­ed and aligned with a life of crim­i­nal­i­ty.

C***** has since de­nounced him­self from the *Rastac­i­ty* group and has as­so­ci­at­ed him­self and his dis­ci­ples with an­oth­er crim­i­nal gang known as *ABG* (Any­body gets it).

Law en­force­ment ought to be equipped proac­tive­ly in deal­ing with this in­tent of so­cial dis­rup­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to re­li­able sources, the fol­low­ing per­sons are play­ing a crit­i­cal role to­wards the in­tent to desta­bilise the State's peace, the streets of Port-of-Spain to be ex­act by pro­mot­ing vi­o­lence through their mu­sic and oth­er so­cial me­dia blogs which clear­ly states their ma­li­cious in­ten­tions.

SEV­ER­AL POP­U­LAR LO­CAL DANCE­HALL/TRINI­BAD SINGERS ARE SAID TO BE IN­VOLVED

Town will burn to the ground.

Gang­sters in and around Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons are ac­tive­ly prepar­ing to en­gage in all out war with each oth­er, as a mu­tu­al ‘truce’ has bro­ken down. Re­li­able sources re­veal that town heads are out for each oth­ers throats, and will not stop un­til their en­e­mies are dead. Sources with cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence are say­ing that T*****, who has the back­ing of the mus­lims in Laven­tille, is ex­pect­ing a large ship­ment of high pow­ered au­to­mat­ic ri­fles that will be com­ing in to­day, Fri­day 15 Jan­u­ary, 2021, and will be able to give Ras­ta City a fight they can’t win. C*****, who is still a big play­er in groups in­volved in or­ga­nized crime, is be­lieved to be ready with firearms and am­mu­ni­tion of his own, and the man­pow­er to go the dis­tance.

Res­i­dents in the Dun­can, and Nel­son Street ar­eas, and in­clud­ing Man­go Rose, St Paul and Basil­lon streets are ex­pect­ing wan­ton vi­o­lence and some are even go­ing so far as to mov­ing out.

Law en­force­ment should ex­pect a se­ries of gang shoot­ings and peo­ple’s homes get­ting burned down, as gang mem­bers un­der T***** are ac­cus­tomed to light­ing per­sons house on fire.