An­na-Lisa Paul

Even in the face of nu­mer­ous warn­ings by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice not to con­gre­gate, es­pe­cial­ly over the long East­er week­end, some cit­i­zens con­tin­ued to ig­nore that call yes­ter­day and it end­ed with law­men and par­ty­go­ers fac­ing off in Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain.

Re­spond­ing to re­ports that a pri­vate par­ty was in progress at Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve just af­ter 10 am yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion Task Force, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of PC Bac­chus, at­tempt­ed to shut it down and dis­perse the crowd, which was es­ti­mat­ed to be over 300 strong.

Ar­riv­ing at the home of a de­ceased gang leader to find mu­sic blast­ing and per­sons par­ty­ing in a jou­vert-like at­mos­phere, the hand­ful of of­fi­cers tried to warn per­sons about breach­es to the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions but the crowd, many of whom were cov­ered in body paint and coloured pow­der, re­port­ed­ly be­came an­gry and be­gan ad­vanc­ing on the of­fi­cers.

Al­though the disc jock­ey com­plied with in­struc­tions from PCs Bac­chus and Aguillera to turn off the loud mu­sic, the at­ten­dees were re­port­ed­ly in­cit­ed by one man known to the po­lice, who told them not to lis­ten and in­stead or­dered them to curse and chase the of­fi­cers.

Fear­ing for their safe­ty, the of­fi­cers called for as­sis­tance, which led to units from the Port-of-Spain Task Force, In­ter Agency Task Force and the Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol re­spond­ing.

As more law en­force­ment agents ar­rived, the crowd quick­ly dis­persed.

How­ev­er, the res­i­dent who in­cit­ed the crowd was ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, where he was charged with breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions, us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and re­sist­ing ar­rest.

When Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, an­gry res­i­dents re­mained gath­ered in groups along the road but de­clined to speak about the in­ci­dent.

Mean­while, there was a heavy po­lice pres­ence at sev­er­al north-coast beach­es yes­ter­day, as of­fi­cers en­sured peo­ple com­plied with in­struc­tions not to con­gre­gate, to wear masks in pub­lic and al­so re­frain from park­ing along the North Coast Road which leads to the Mara­cas, Tyri­co, Las Cuevas and Blan­chisseuse beach­es.

Vis­i­tors stop­ping to pur­chase pop­u­lar treats at the Mara­cas look-out were sur­prised to hear a fe­male of­fi­cer on a loud-speak­er warn­ing per­sons to en­sure their masks were on and is­su­ing in­struc­tions to so­cial dis­tance, as she urged them to buy quick­ly and move on.

Al­though the crowds at Mara­cas and Las Cuevas were small­er yes­ter­day com­pared to Sun­day, many beach­go­ers said they had ven­tured out to get a last-minute sea bath as work re­sumes to­day.

At Tyri­co beach, there was an in­crease in the num­ber of beach­go­ers al­though it has been closed to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic for the past two months fol­low­ing a par­ty back in Jan­u­ary.

Close to 10,000 vis­i­tors were re­port­ed to have been head­ed to To­ba­go dur­ing last week and this week, prompt­ing con­cerns that there could be a spike in the virus.