Three men were re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore a Port of Spain Mag­is­trate to­day, charged with com­mit­ting sev­er­al of­fences in the cap­i­tal city, dur­ing the is­land-wide black­out on Wednes­day 16th Feb­ru­ary 2022.

The men are ex­pect­ed to face the courts again next week and in March, ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice.

●   AHKELL BRAN­DON, aka ‘Frog­gy’, 38, of Port-of-Spain, was ar­rest­ed and charged with store break­ing and lar­ce­ny and ma­li­cious dam­age. 

●   RONEL ARTHUR, 31, was charged with pos­ses­sion of ap­pa­ra­tus, es­cap­ing law­ful cus­tody, store break­ing with in­tent and ma­li­cious dam­age.

●   GAR­NET STA­PLE­TON, 38, of St. Joseph, was charged with un­law­ful pos­ses­sion.

The three ac­cused ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor, on Fri­day 18th Feb­ru­ary 2022, to an­swer to the charges.

The Po­lice Ser­vice re­lease notes that Bran­don was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody and the mat­ter ad­journed to Tues­day 15th March 2022; Arthur is due back in court on Wednes­day 16th March 2022; and Sta­ple­ton’s mat­ter was ad­journed to Wednes­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to the Po­lice Ser­vice, on Wednes­day night, of­fi­cers con­duct­ed pa­trols and in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tions across Port-of-Spain dur­ing the is­land wide pow­er out­age in­ci­dent, to en­sure that the cap­i­tal city was kept safe and se­cure.

In the first in­ci­dent, of­fi­cers of the POS City Po­lice Op­er­a­tional Task Force (CPOTF) were on mo­bile pa­trol along Hen­ry Street, Port of Spain, around 8:30 pm on Wednes­day, when they ob­served that the se­cu­ri­ty shut­ters of a busi­ness place were open, and the glass door bro­ken. With the as­sis­tance of In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) of­fi­cers, checks were made in­side the store which re­sult­ed in a 38-year-old man be­ing dis­cov­ered on the premis­es, with a jack­et and book bag al­leged­ly in his pos­ses­sion. The man, iden­ti­fied as AHKELL BRAN­DON, aka ‘Frog­gy’, of Port-of-Spain, was ar­rest­ed and sub­se­quent­ly charged with store break­ing and lar­ce­ny and ma­li­cious dam­age by WPC Roach.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, of­fi­cers of the CPOTF were on mo­bile pa­trol around 12:30am on Thurs­day, when they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion of a break-in at a fur­ni­ture store. The of­fi­cers re­spond­ed and ob­served a man run­ning away from the es­tab­lish­ment. A chase en­sued and the man was held a short dis­tance away, with the as­sis­tance of of­fi­cers of the IATF. The man al­leged­ly was found to be in pos­ses­sion of an ap­pa­ra­tus com­mon­ly used with the dan­ger­ous drug co­caine. The sus­pect re­sist­ed and ran a short dis­tance be­fore be­ing quick­ly ap­pre­hend­ed. The man, iden­ti­fied as RONEL ARTHUR, 31, sub­se­quent­ly was charged with pos­ses­sion of ap­pa­ra­tus, es­cap­ing law­ful cus­tody, store break­ing with in­tent and ma­li­cious dam­age by WPC Mat­loo.

In a third, un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, of­fi­cers of the CPOTF were on mo­bile pa­trol around 2:55 am on Thurs­day, when they ob­served a man al­leged­ly with two fans in his pos­ses­sion. The of­fi­cers stopped the man and af­ter not be­ing sat­is­fied as to where he got the items, he was ar­rest­ed. The man, iden­ti­fied as GAR­NET STA­PLE­TON, 38, of St. Joseph, was sub­se­quent­ly charged with un­law­ful pos­ses­sion by WPC May­ers.