To­ba­go po­lice say they are mak­ing strides in re­duc­ing crime on the is­land, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the de­c­la­ra­tion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) on De­cem­ber 30. How­ev­er, they again lament­ed that young peo­ple, from as ear­ly as age 12, are be­ing lured in­to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Dur­ing a To­ba­go Stake­hold­ers Se­cu­ri­ty meet­ing yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, ACP Os­wain Subero said the SoE op­er­a­tions have been bear­ing fruit.

Both Subero and Snr Supt Earl Elie spoke of a no­table de­cline in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and the re­cov­ery of nar­cotics and firearm seizures.

Subero said, “What we have seen in To­ba­go, re­gard­ing our op­er­a­tions from the 30th, we have been able to de­tain per­sons, we have been able to charge per­sons and we have been able to re­cov­er the num­ber one thing we want­ed—firearms.

“We have been see­ing suc­cess, some of which we can’t dis­cuss here and we look for­ward to the Par­lia­ment mak­ing a de­ci­sion on how the SoE will be in ef­fect. It’s our dri­ve in 2025 to re­move as many firearms off the is­land as pos­si­ble. Firearms and nar­cotics are the prob­lems in To­ba­go and our plan is spe­cif­ic to ad­dress­ing those is­sues. We are go­ing af­ter those is­sues.”

He said there will al­so be a spe­cial fo­cus on pro­vid­ing more re­sources to the Tourism-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Unit on the is­land to im­prove the ser­vices to vis­i­tors. How­ev­er, Elie ac­knowl­edged a trou­bling trend of young­sters, some as young as age 12, be­ing re­cruit­ed by gangs.

“Par­ent­ing is im­por­tant, but the un­der­world is still get­ting to our chil­dren. We need to re­turn to the days when it took a vil­lage to raise a child. We must look out not just for our own, but for the com­mu­ni­ty’s chil­dren too.“

“In To­ba­go, we have of­fi­cers as­signed to each school to treat these is­sues. Yet, it’s still not enough. We need every­one’s help to keep our young peo­ple from be­ing lured in­to crime.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, speak­ing at the news con­fer­ence, de­scribed the re­cent mur­der of a 15-year-old Beris Joseph as a stark re­minder of these chal­lenges.

Beris was found shot dead at Mt Hay last week­end. Po­lice con­firmed he had been in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Au­gus­tine said, “We pro­vide free ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, free desks, free every­thing and still a life of crime got to this young man, which negates the po­si­tion that some in the space say we need to give more free things. Give more and that will stop the crime. The THA will give every­thing and we could still end up in this place of peo­ple don’t take per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“What I saw was a child that could have eas­i­ly been a stu­dent of mine … a Fifth Form stu­dent prepar­ing for ex­am­i­na­tions, whole life in front of him, po­ten­tial not yet birthed. That’s all just killed in a mo­ment—shut down, sti­fled, nev­er to be had again.”

He said the onus is on com­mu­ni­ties, par­ents and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions to guard young peo­ple, in­stil dis­ci­pline and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.