Two Tu­na­puna men were ar­rest­ed by mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) over the week­end, af­ter Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds signed off on de­ten­tion or­ders for them un­der the re­cent­ly en­act­ed Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2024, cit­ing their in­volve­ment in vi­o­lent crimes and crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cies.

Ac­cord­ing to the or­ders, De­clan Ross, al­so known as “Knot,” of Tu­na­puna Road, and Deshon Reuben, al­so known as “Kill Quick,” of Main­got Road, were iden­ti­fied as mem­bers of the Re­sis­tance Gang, which is al­leged­ly en­gaged in vi­o­lent gun-re­lat­ed crimes, in­clud­ing mur­der, armed rob­bery, nar­cotics, and firearms traf­fick­ing.

The de­ten­tion or­ders, dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 7, state that both men were in­volved in a con­spir­a­cy to kill in­di­vid­u­als be­lieved to be as­sist­ing the TTPS with in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to their gang’s ac­tiv­i­ties.

Un­der Reg­u­la­tion 15 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has the au­thor­i­ty to is­sue de­ten­tion or­ders to pre­vent in­di­vid­u­als from en­gag­ing in ac­tiv­i­ties deemed prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty, pub­lic or­der, or the de­fence of the coun­try. The reg­u­la­tions al­low for the ar­rest and de­ten­tion of in­di­vid­u­als with­out a war­rant.

Both men are now be­ing held at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma. There are now 17 peo­ple de­tained at the fa­cil­i­ty.

Hinds jus­ti­fied the de­ten­tions by stat­ing that Ross and Reuben’s con­tin­ued free­dom posed a sig­nif­i­cant threat to pub­lic safe­ty. He em­pha­sised that the Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion against crim­i­nal el­e­ments that en­dan­ger the coun­try. - Rhon­dor Dowlat