An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The past year has seen new records be­ing set as T&T record­ed its high­est-ever mur­der toll at 624 and with the pub­lic clam­our­ing for the au­thor­i­ties to take back the coun­try from crim­i­nal el­e­ments – a State of Emer­gency (SoE) was an­nounced on De­cem­ber 30, in the hope it would bring a sting­ing halt to this grim pe­ri­od.

While the cit­i­zen­ry waits with bat­ed breath to see the ef­fects of the SoE, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has as­sured the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will con­tin­ue its valiant and ro­bust ef­forts to com­bat the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

In a re­lease on Jan­u­ary 1, she said the seizure of il­le­gal arms and am­mu­ni­tion and the dis­man­tling of the crim­i­nal gangs re­main their most ur­gent task.

Look­ing back at 2024, which saw blood be­ing spilled in places pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered off-lim­its, such as hos­pi­tals, and with guns as the favoured weapon of choice – over 40 women and ten chil­dren were slaugh­tered in heinous cir­cum­stances that brought the na­tion to its knees.

Au­thor­i­ties record­ed a surge in mass shoot­ings, which in­clud­ed 33 dou­ble homi­cides; eight triple homi­cides; four quadru­ple homi­cides; and two quin­tu­ple homi­cides.

Au­gust was the blood­i­est month of the year, hav­ing record­ed 68 killings in that pe­ri­od.

While both killings and kid­nap­pings led to tears and prayers, some in­ci­dents and grue­some dis­cov­er­ies rocked the pub­lic.

Among the in­ci­dents that stood out was the dis­cov­ery of Han­nah Mathu­ra’s skele­tal re­mains in a shal­low grave on March 12 at the fam­i­ly’s Bu­tu Road, South Val­sayn home.

The re­mains of Han­nah, 18, who was nev­er re­port­ed miss­ing, were said to have been buried in a shal­low grave be­hind the fam­i­ly home in 2017.

The po­lice were tipped off by a male rel­a­tive, who showed them the lo­ca­tion of the grave. An ex­ca­va­tor was used to dig up the body.

Han­nah’s par­ents, An­drew and Alana, were sub­se­quent­ly charged with her mur­der.

Alana died whilst in the care of prison au­thor­i­ties on No­vem­ber 1 while An­drew re­mains in­car­cer­at­ed.

Al­so in March, in­ves­ti­ga­tors were forced to comb through a hu­man grave­yard of bones dis­cov­ered at Dog Is­land, which bor­ders the swampy area off Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve, Sea Lots.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, law­men wad­ed through the marsh to find the macabre scene where hu­man bones had been strewn across the man­grove; along with the re­mains of a body hang­ing from a tree, with what ap­peared to be a hu­man skull with bul­let holes in it.

And even as the coun­try strug­gled to ac­cept what was be­ing un­earthed in the Mathu­ra mur­der, their grief and out­rage es­ca­lat­ed with the bru­tal be­head­ing of four-year-old Ama­rah Lalitte on April 8.

Lalitte was beat­en and then de­cap­i­tat­ed by a male rel­a­tive af­ter an al­leged ar­gu­ment he had with her moth­er at their home at Fifth Street, Arou­ca.

This, even as ex­tor­tion de­mands spiked and busi­ness own­ers were run­ning scared. Kid­nap­pings for ran­som in­creased to six be­tween Jan­u­ary and Oc­to­ber 2024, com­pared to three for the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od the year be­fore.

The most talked about was that of Fe­lic­i­ty res­i­dent Ko­mal Ma­haraj, who was re­port­ed­ly tak­en af­ter he went to an ATM at Price Plaza, Ch­agua­nas, at 2 pm on Ju­ly 19.

Al­most two weeks af­ter he went miss­ing, the 40-year-old was re­unit­ed with his fam­i­ly af­ter an undis­closed ran­som was al­leged­ly paid.

Ma­haraj claimed to have been tak­en to Venezuela and was re­leased in the sea off the south west­ern coast of Trinidad.

The kid­nap­ping of busi­ness­woman An­isha Ho­sein on May 18, as she was set­ting up her dou­bles stand with her hus­band in El Do­ra­do, Tu­na­puna, brought many to their knees, as the na­tion prayed for her safe re­lease.

Af­ter an undis­closed ran­som was re­port­ed­ly paid by rel­a­tives for her safe re­turn, Ho­sein, 27, was re­leased un­harmed on May 23 in the Ca­roni area.

Car­ry­ing out ex­ten­sive ex­er­cis­es based on in­for­ma­tion, of­fi­cers lat­er en­gaged in a fire­fight as they con­front­ed four sus­pects at a house at St John’s Road, St Au­gus­tine – re­sult­ing in the four dy­ing.

The dead men were iden­ti­fied as Christo­pher Nor­ie­ga, of Five Rivers, Arou­ca; Tevon May­nard, of Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni; Akeem “Scheme” Pun­nette, and Joshua “Boun­ty” Allen, of Kel­ly Vil­lage.

Po­lice claimed the men were mem­bers of the Re­sis­tance gang.

As in­ci­dents of de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace in­creased, this spawned the es­tab­lish­ment of the Ex­tor­tion Task Force head­ed by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Richard Smith.

Al­so in May, the coun­try was left won­der­ing who re­al­ly ran things af­ter a se­ries of il­le­gal­ly in­stalled CCTV cam­eras were dis­cov­ered through­out the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion (NCD), which were re­port­ed­ly be­ing used by gangs to spy on the po­lice at var­i­ous sta­tions along the East-West cor­ri­dor.

As­ton­ished law en­force­ment agents rushed to dis­man­tle the ex­ten­sive net­work of cam­eras and wire­less routers, which were said to be worth hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars, that had been set up on util­i­ty poles in the di­vi­sions by crim­i­nals.

And even as this was be­ing ad­dressed, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­mit­ted the Gov­ern­ment had been blind-sided by de­vel­op­ments at the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

Af­ter in­for­ma­tion sur­faced that the coun­try’s top se­cu­ri­ty agency had al­leged­ly been com­pro­mised with the es­tab­lish­ment of a mil­i­tarised op­er­a­tional unit and had been in­fil­trat­ed by a re­li­gious “cult” that want­ed to re­place the “coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship,” Row­ley, as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, act­ed quick­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to con­tain and quash any mutiny.

Trou­bling is­sues force SSA shake-up

Brig Gen An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer was re­called from his post as Am­bas­sador to the US to lead the au­dit in­to the SSA, which even­tu­al­ly saw for­mer di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best be­ing sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave in ear­ly March.

He was lat­er ar­rest­ed on May 16, along with pas­tor Ian Brown, a for­mer spe­cial re­serve of­fi­cer as­signed to the SSA, along with for­mer se­cu­ri­ty su­per­vi­sor Portell Grif­fith and Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron, for­mer­ly as­signed to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team.

The group was ar­rest­ed af­ter a two-and-a-half-month-long in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a wide range of al­le­ga­tions against SSA agents and was ques­tioned on the trans­fer of the weapons from the po­lice to the SSA.

On the heels of this breach of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, Cana­di­an blog­ger and pop­u­lar YouTu­ber Christo­pher Hugh­es, who is known as Chris Must List, was ar­rest­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) in May, af­ter be­ing in­formed he could face pos­si­ble charges un­der the An­ti-Gang Act and Im­mi­gra­tion Act.

The 45-year-old was charged with mak­ing a sedi­tious pub­li­ca­tion and plead­ed not guilty to the of­fence last Sep­tem­ber.

With his mat­ter set to go to tri­al lat­er this month, Hugh­es, who is out on $100,000 bail, could face a $3,000 fine or two years im­pris­on­ment if found guilty.

Through­out the year, as the mur­der rate in­creased, re­ports of home in­va­sions in­creased, and kid­nap­pings be­came more pro­nounced than in pre­vi­ous years. Calls were made by the Op­po­si­tion and oth­ers for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds to be re­lieved of his port­fo­lio. In­stead, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced in late Ju­ly that MP for Port of Spain South, Kei­th Scot­land, had been ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Re­ports of ex­tor­tion, es­pe­cial­ly against busi­ness­peo­ple, al­so in­creased, lead­ing to the es­tab­lish­ment of an Ex­tor­tion Task Force head­ed by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Richard Smith.

Among the con­cerns the TTPS ex­ec­u­tive would have to ad­dress al­most im­me­di­ate­ly was the in­crease in the num­ber of re­ports of per­sons dressed in po­lice tac­ti­cal wear who were re­port­ed­ly en­gaged in kid­nap­pings, home in­va­sions and shoot­ings.

This led to CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher in­struct­ing po­lice of­fi­cers to re­turn their tac­ti­cal gear in or­der to re­turn to the tra­di­tion­al pa­trol or­der III uni­forms (grey and blue) in Oc­to­ber.

In a mem­o­ran­dum de­clar­ing the or­der, Hare­wood-Christo­pher ex­empt­ed on­ly the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, In­ter-Agency Task Force, Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Task Force and the Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion from this process.

Al­though many com­plained of do­ing so un­der duress, they braved the sun and rain to com­ply.

Oc­to­ber was par­tic­u­lar­ly bloody, af­ter record­ing two heinous mur­der in­ci­dents in which moth­ers and their young chil­dren were killed as a re­sult of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

In the first in­ci­dent on Oc­to­ber 8, Tara Ram­sa­roop and her 14-month-old daugh­ter Ja­da Moti­lal were killed by a male rel­a­tive at their home in Bar­rack­pore.

This fol­lowed six years of abuse and nu­mer­ous pro­tec­tion or­ders be­ing ig­nored.

And as cit­i­zens re­mained aghast, they were again con­front­ed with a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion fol­low­ing the killing of Lau­ra Sankar, 34, a maxi-taxi dri­ver, at her Post Of­fice Trace, Princes Town home.

The moth­er of two was chopped to death by a male rel­a­tive, even as her teenage son at­tempt­ed to in­ter­vene.

He was lat­er forced to flee with his younger sib­ling to seek help for Sankar, who was lat­er found hacked to death.

Over in the sis­ter isle, the qui­et and easy-go­ing na­ture of res­i­dents be­came dis­rupt­ed as a record 26 mur­ders were record­ed in 2024.

Gang war­fare forces Govt to call SoE

De­cem­ber was an­oth­er month of blood­shed with two par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dents, lead­ing the TTPS to pro­vide the Gov­ern­ment with in­for­ma­tion which would lead it to trig­ger the SoE.

In the first in­ci­dent on De­cem­ber 28, Trevor Williams, 31, of Clifton Tow­ers, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain, was gunned down out­side the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion.

Po­lice said Williams and sev­er­al oth­er men had ac­com­pa­nied Calvin Lee, aka “Tyson” or “Dan 6,” to the sta­tion so that he could sign the bail book. Lee had been charged with firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences and was al­so ques­tioned in re­la­tion to ex­tor­tion and shoot­ing of­fences pre­vi­ous­ly and had to re­port to the sta­tion as part of his bail con­di­tions.

Po­lice said when Lee, Williams and the oth­er men were leav­ing the sta­tion at 3 pm, men armed with high-pow­ered ri­fles who were wait­ing in a parked pan­el van op­po­site the sta­tion, got out and am­bushed the group. Williams was shot sev­er­al times but Lee man­aged to es­cape.

The fol­low­ing day, five men were gunned down in Priz­gar Lands, Laven­tille.

They were iden­ti­fied as Cleon Lu­g­in, 37, Der­ron Cal­liste, 35, Kam­bon Omowale, 39, Garet Smart, and Ryan Lessey, 24. Lessey, Cal­liste, Lu­g­in and Omowale were from Priz­gar Lands, while Smart was from Thoma­sine Street. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, at 8.30 pm, a group of men were lim­ing near the St John Shop along Priz­gar Lands Cir­cu­lar, when a blue Hyundai Elantra and a white Nis­san AD Wag­on pulled up.

A group of gun­men got out of the ve­hi­cles and opened fire on the lim­ing group. Six peo­ple were hit but one sur­vived.

Po­lice linked this at­tack to the killing of Trevor Williams out­side of the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion.

Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art Young an­nounced the SoE on De­cem­ber 30, say­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, had been giv­en in­tel­li­gence by the TTPS which sug­gest­ed that gangs were gear­ing up for a se­ries of reprisal at­tacks and planned to use high-pow­ered weapons to do so. He said the threat to pub­lic safe­ty from such a fall­out was what ul­ti­mate­ly forced the Gov­ern­ment to trig­ger the SoE.

De­spite this, the year end­ed with an­oth­er bru­tal killing.

In what was the last act by the killers for the year, state pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor, 43, was gunned down as he left church with his wife and two chil­dren. Hec­tor had ear­li­er de­liv­ered the ser­mon at the Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist (SDA) Church, Stan­more Av­enue, Queen’s Park West, Port of Spain.

Hec­tor, who con­duct­ed spe­cial pros­e­cu­tions for the State and was a for­mer Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Agency (SSA) le­gal di­rec­tor, was walk­ing to his car on Stan­more Av­enue with his wife and two chil­dren when he was am­bushed by gun­men who pulled along­side him in a black SUV and Nis­san B15 sedan.

In her New Year’s Day mes­sage, the top cop ad­mit­ted, “We may not have achieved our tar­gets, but we have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in our ef­forts to­wards achiev­ing them, and even though it may not be im­me­di­ate­ly ap­par­ent, I can as­sure you that the coun­try has ben­e­fit­ted from it.”

She urged the coun­try not to dis­count or un­der­es­ti­mate the sub­stan­tial amount of in­tel­li­gence and op­er­a­tional work done by the TTPS in pre­vent­ing, de­tect­ing and pros­e­cut­ing crime.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher claimed, “The high ev­i­den­tial thresh­old that cur­rent­ly ex­ists for the lay­ing of gang-re­lat­ed charges has op­er­at­ed to un­der­mine our ef­forts to im­prove our de­tec­tion rate,” adding, “The TTPS re­mains ful­ly com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing and serv­ing our Na­tion.”

Look­ing ahead to 2025, she reaf­firmed the TTPS’ com­mit­ment to do bet­ter as she said their ef­forts were be­ing, “con­stant­ly erod­ed by the ac­tions of a per­sis­tent crim­i­nal el­e­ment whose on­ly busi­ness, it seems, is to in­vent and per­pe­trate crime.”

She ap­pealed to cit­i­zens to as­sume per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the fight against crime.

Is­su­ing fight­ing words, she urged, “Wher­ev­er we are, and what­ev­er we do, let us use our au­thor­i­ty and our in­flu­ence to ef­fect the change every­one wants and is cry­ing out for.”