An­na-Lisa Paul

As thou­sands of na­tion­als and vis­i­tors alike re­turn to the streets of T&T this year for Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, fol­low­ing a two-year hia­tus due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is as­sur­ing that all mea­sures are in place to en­sure the safe­ty of every­one.

In an­nounc­ing an over 800-strong unit of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to be de­ployed for the fes­tiv­i­ties yes­ter­day, Car­ni­val Gold Com­man­der, ACP Col­lis Hazel, said 300 sol­diers will be part of the show of force to en­sure law and or­der pre­vails.

Seat­ed next to the new­ly-mint­ed Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher dur­ing the week­ly TTPS me­dia brief­ing at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Hazel proud­ly de­clared, “We are ready. We have done our home­work and we are pre­pared to ad­dress the chal­lenges and all the is­sues we can mit­i­gate in treat­ing with Car­ni­val 2023.”

In ad­di­tion to the TTPS and De­fence Force, of­fi­cers from var­i­ous arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty will be bol­ster­ing the re­sponse team, in­clud­ing the Fire Ser­vice; Prison Ser­vice; Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice; Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion; Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice; and pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

Seek­ing to re­as­sure the pub­lic, Hazel said, “You can ex­pect var­i­ous types of se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols on Car­ni­val days. We will be there, out and about. On foot, on mo­bile, aer­i­al pa­trols, on the sea, on bi­cy­cles, on mo­tor­bikes...even drones.”

Ap­peal­ing to par­tic­i­pants and on­look­ers to be re­spon­si­ble as they en­joy what has been dubbed the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals,” Hazel said they were ex­pect­ing over 27,000 peo­ple to ar­rive via Caribbean Air­lines by this week­end—and a fur­ther 1,500 vis­i­tors via the Epic Cruise.

He as­sured, “We are pre­pared in or­der to treat with our cit­i­zens and our tourists.”

Hazel qui­et­ly boast­ed of an in­ci­dent-free pe­ri­od dur­ing re­cent weeks, in which 37,049 ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers on 15 vis­it­ing cruise lines vis­it­ed and left the coun­try with­out any even­tu­al­i­ty.

The pub­lic was re­mind­ed to con­tact the TTPS via 555 or 999 to re­port in­ci­dents, which will be re-di­rect­ed to the Com­mand Cen­tre on Car­ni­val days.

Hazel re­mind­ed that the glass bot­tle ban is be­ing en­forced and ap­pealed to per­sons to com­ply.

For mo­torists tak­ing a chance to park in non-des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas, Hazel said all wrecked ve­hi­cles can be re­trieved at the Li­cens­ing Of­fice on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. He al­so re­mind­ed that spe­cial per­mits were nec­es­sary for per­sons want­i­ng to come in­to the city cen­tres to par­tic­i­pate in the cel­e­bra­tions.

Mean­while, CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher ap­pealed to fe­male mas­quer­aders to re­sist the lure of win­ing on po­lice of­fi­cers as they par­tic­i­pate in the fes­tiv­i­ties.

As the first fe­male head in charge of T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, she is con­fi­dent her per­son­nel will “not re­turn a wine” should they find them­selves hav­ing to fend off lewd and sug­ges­tive danc­ing by scant­i­ly-clad women who find it dar­ing and/or chal­leng­ing to wine on uni­formed of­fi­cers.

Urg­ing all mas­quer­aders to ex­er­cise a lev­el of self-re­spect dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions, the soft-spo­ken CoP ad­vised, “It is dis­re­spect­ful and un-wel­comed.”

Open­ing yes­ter­day’s pro­ceed­ings with a word of grat­i­tude for those re­spon­si­ble for her ap­point­ment, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “I want to pub­licly thank the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, the Gov­ern­ment and the mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion for giv­ing me this op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead the TTPS as CoP.”

She pledged to pro­vide im­proved polic­ing ser­vices to T&T.

“What I will try to do is to pro­vide a po­lice ser­vice that is ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing its man­date, is com­pe­tent and able to man­age all its chal­lenges—all the ur­gent and re­cent chal­lenges. An or­gan­i­sa­tion that is ag­ile, ef­fi­cient and pro­fes­sion­al. And all this will be in keep­ing with our mis­sion in part­ner­ship with the cit­i­zens of T&T,” she said.

“A part­ner­ship that will en­sure ef­fi­cient, ef­fec­tive polic­ing ser­vices through fo­cused lead­er­ship and pro­fes­sion­al, con­sis­tent­ly high stan­dards of polic­ing. And there is no bet­ter time than now for us to work in part­ner­ship, as we in­vite na­tion­als from all over the world to en­joy our car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher, Hazel and ACP, Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion, Win­ston Ma­haraj, al­so urged those think­ing of en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal­i­ty dur­ing the Car­ni­val to “think twice.”

They said the TTPS has al­ready start­ed tar­get­ed strikes against known of­fend­ers who may be think­ing of dis­rupt­ing the rev­el­ry.

Ma­haraj al­so ap­pealed to the pub­lic to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice that can lead to the ap­pre­hen­sion of per­sons en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

He called on the pub­lic to be aware and sus­pi­cious of their sur­round­ings in or­der to re­main safe.

He al­so urged mas­quer­aders to re­mem­ber there is life af­ter Car­ni­val, and that they should main­tain re­spect at all times for them­selves, their fam­i­ly and the law.

Se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems were al­so said to be in place at the na­tion’s beach­es for both the Car­ni­val and cool-down pe­ri­ods on Ash Wednes­day and even there­after.