On day three of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), 50 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for breach of cur­few hours in eight of the nine po­lice di­vi­sions.

This means in the first three days of the SoE, a to­tal of 75 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed across the coun­try.

Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­leased yes­ter­day, 15 out of the 50 were ar­rest­ed in the North­ern Di­vi­sion; 12 in To­ba­go; nine in the East­ern Di­vi­sion; five in the West­ern Di­vi­sion; four in the South West­ern Di­vi­sion; three in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion and one each in the Port-of-Spain and North East­ern Di­vi­sions. No one was ar­rest­ed in the South­ern Di­vi­sion.

Guardian Me­dia was told that po­lice set up 77 road­blocks across the coun­try and ar­rest­ed 50 peo­ple for breach­ing cur­few hours.

But while hun­dreds of po­lice of­fi­cers mo­bilised for rou­tine pa­trols, road­blocks and sting op­er­a­tions, on­ly a few sol­diers were spot­ted do­ing pa­trols on Tues­day night.

In South Trinidad, two sol­diers were seen at a road­block at La­dy Hailes Av­enue in San Fer­nan­do, but on Mon­day no sol­diers were seen and there was lit­tle ac­tiv­i­ty at the T&T army base in La Ro­maine. 

A high-rank­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cial told Guardian Me­dia that out of 5,000 mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force, on­ly about 50 sol­diers were despatched for pa­trols dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

“The De­fence Force has 200 ve­hi­cles, but on­ly two ve­hi­cles went out to as­sist the po­lice on Tues­day. Our in­for­ma­tion is that the TTPS sent out 70 ve­hi­cles and set up 77 road­blocks. Thou­sands of po­lice of­fi­cers have been on the streets do­ing pa­trols but there is a no­tice­able lack of pres­ence in many ar­eas by the T&T De­fence Force,” the source said.

Chief of De­fence Staff Dar­ryl Daniel could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day, as calls to his cel­lu­lar phone went unan­swered and he did not re­spond to mes­sages. 

In­ci­dents of breach­es

Four peo­ple, David Bur­roughs, Naieem Caton, Glen­roy Hen­ry and Reno Modesto, who were caught break­ing cur­few Tues­day night, were each fined $10,000 by a Point Fortin Mag­is­trate yes­ter­day af­ter plead­ing guilty to the of­fence.

An­oth­er man, Stal­lone Ramkissoon, who was al­leged­ly spot­ted along Chatham Beach, Erin, by Ce­dros po­lice, plead­ed not guilty and was grant­ed $75,000 bail with a sure­ty. He is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court to an­swer the charge.

Mean­while, two men—Aaron Lynch, 27, of Dyette Street, Cunu­pia and Kis­han Ram­per­sad, 32, of Munroe Road, Cunu­pia—who at­tempt­ed to out­run po­lice on Tues­day night, were or­dered to pay $5,000 each af­ter plead­ing guilty to the breach of cur­few. The two men were ar­rest­ed ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter po­lice in­ter­cept­ed a ve­hi­cle that failed to stop along Bridal Road, Cunu­pia.

Of­fi­cers of the St Mar­garet’s Po­lice Sta­tion mean­while ar­rest­ed and charged 60-year-old Al­loy Turn­er ear­ly Wednes­day for breach of cur­few and lar­ce­ny. He plead­ed guilty when he ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan at the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Court.

Around 3.10 am, of­fi­cers on mo­bile pa­trol ob­served the sus­pect push­ing a wheel­bar­row with 30 clay blocks along the South­ern Main Road, St Mar­garet’s. The of­fi­cers ap­proached him and asked if he was aware of the cur­few hours and if he had the au­tho­ri­sa­tion to be out­side.

He told of­fi­cers he was aware and that he didn’t have au­tho­ri­sa­tion but that it was the on­ly time for him to do what he was do­ing. Of­fi­cers al­so asked where he got the blocks and he point­ed to an open piece of land close by. He was asked if he was the own­er, or if he had per­mis­sion to take them, to which he in­di­cat­ed he did not, but on­ly took some. He was ar­rest­ed for breach of cur­few and lar­ce­ny.

Mean­while, in San Fer­nan­do, sev­er­al peo­ple es­caped be­ing charged for breach­ing the cur­few.

An em­ploy­ee from Ju­nior Sam­my Con­trac­tors was stopped as he head­ed home, with­out a cur­few pass. The of­fi­cers es­cort­ed him home af­ter he told of­fi­cers he was re­turn­ing from work. Sev­er­al nurs­es and doc­tors em­ployed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were al­so stopped. They too were al­lowed to leave af­ter they pre­sent­ed their hos­pi­tal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.