An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa,paul@guardian.co.tt

A to­tal of 46 peo­ple were de­tained by the au­thor­i­ties dur­ing the first 24 hours of the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

This was con­firmed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Knowsley Build­ing, Dun­don­ald Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, she de­clined to re­veal if this in­clud­ed gang lead­ers; gang mem­bers/as­so­ciates; and per­sons found to be ob­struct­ing of­fi­cers dur­ing the course of their du­ties un­der the SoE.

But de­spite the se­cu­ri­ty lock­down, at­tor­ney Ran­dall Hec­tor, 43, was gunned down along Stan­more Av­enue, Port-of-Spain, at 8 pm, tak­ing the mur­der toll to 624 head­ing in­to the fi­nal hours of 2024. Hec­tor, of Glen­coe, West­moor­ings, was re­prot­ed­ly am­bused and shot as he was walk­ing to­wards his car.

Un­der the cur­rent SoE reg­u­la­tions, po­lice of­fi­cers have been vest­ed with ex­pand­ed pow­ers, which, ac­cord­ing to the CoP, al­low them to bet­ter ex­e­cute their law en­force­ment man­date.

“The events of the past week are well known to all of us and should gen­er­ate a se­ri­ous cause for con­cern for all right-think­ing per­sons in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty,” Hare­wood-Christop­er said.

“That sit­u­a­tion (gang war­fare/reprisals), ac­cord­ing to our in­tel­li­gence, had the po­ten­tial to es­ca­late in­to a gross­ly un­de­sir­able threat to pub­lic safe­ty that the TTPS would not con­done.”

She re­in­forced, “The ad­di­tion­al pow­ers that are now avail­able through the SoE, this will em­pow­er us to utilise our in­tel­li­gence to launch very in­va­sive polic­ing op­er­a­tions, tar­get­ing known and pro­lif­ic of­fend­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in­volved in il­le­gal drugs, firearms and am­mu­ni­tion, and the com­mis­sion of vi­o­lent crimes, in­clud­ing kid­nap­ping, home in­va­sions and homi­cides.”

Seat­ed be­side Chief of De­fence Staff of the De­fence Force, Air Vice Mar­shal Dar­ryl Daniel, the top cop as­sured, “We will con­tin­ue to ful­ly utilise the pow­er, le­git­i­mate­ly...and guar­an­tee that we will get the de­sired re­sults.”

Vow­ing to be trans­par­ent and ac­count­able, she urged cit­i­zens to co­op­er­ate with the au­thor­i­ties al­though they will be in­con­ve­nienced. She said it was time for the au­thor­i­ties and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to take back the coun­try.

“The crim­i­nals have had in­no­cent cit­i­zens lit­er­al­ly un­der the gun for too long, and this fi­nal­ly, is per­haps our best op­por­tu­ni­ty to have them on the run.”

In set­ting out the pa­ra­me­ters of the SoE reg­u­la­tions, TTPS Le­gal Of­fi­cer, Sgt Za­heer Ali, said a de­part­men­tal or­der had been draft­ed which would guide the po­lice in the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ties dur­ing the ini­tial three-month pe­ri­od of the SoE, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it re­lat­ed to de­tain­ing, ar­rest­ing and charg­ing peo­ple.

Asked about what mea­sures were in place to pre­vent po­lice of­fi­cers from abus­ing their pow­ers un­der these reg­u­la­tions, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “Of­fi­cers will be ful­ly briefed on the le­gal pa­ra­me­ters of the SoE and the modus operan­di for the TTPS.

“Our op­er­a­tions will be care­ful­ly craft­ed and well su­per­vised, and we will be pro­por­tion­ate in all our ac­tions to main­tain high stan­dards of ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

Pressed for clar­i­ty on the length of time peo­ple can be de­tained un­der the reg­u­la­tions, Sgt Ali said fol­low­ing an ini­tial 48-hour pe­ri­od, “an as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent or a mag­is­trate will be in­voked to as­sess the de­ten­tion of that par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­ual in keep­ing with due process and in keep­ing with the rights of that in­di­vid­ual.”

He added, “If the as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent or the mag­is­trate finds favour, that there is a need to fur­ther de­tain that per­son for fur­ther en­quiries, that will be at the dis­cre­tion of the as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent or the mag­is­trate as the case may be.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing these things were not a com­mon or dai­ly oc­cur­rence, Ali said, “It is our in­ten­tion to have some fur­ther pub­lic aware­ness so that we can break down these emer­gency reg­u­la­tions as sim­ple as pos­si­ble so per­sons will un­der­stand.”

On the is­sue of how the pub­lic can de­ter­mine if in­di­vid­u­als en­ter­ing their premis­es to con­duct search­es are le­git­i­mate po­lice of­fi­cers and not ban­dits pos­ing as such, giv­en a pro­lif­er­a­tion of such in­ci­dents last year, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said there were pro­ce­dures to be fol­lowed.

“Po­lice of­fi­cers are still re­quired to iden­ti­fy them­selves, but I want to in­form the pub­lic that po­lice of­fi­cers on ex­er­cis­es and op­er­a­tions...you will have of­fi­cers dressed in po­lice uni­form, grey and blue, so even if you have of­fi­cers in the op­er­a­tional wear, they would al­ways be ac­com­pa­nied by an of­fi­cer in the of­fi­cial grey and blue uni­form,” she said.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions as to whether she was daunt­ed to have the coun­try record its high­est mur­der toll ever last year, at 624 un­der her tenure, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said de­spite this, “the TTPS con­tin­ues to be com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of T&T.”