Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

In the wake of a triple mur­der in Laven­tille, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is urg­ing com­mu­ni­ties across the na­tion to play an ac­tive role in stand­ing against crime.

Po­lice re­port­ed that three men—Keon Alexan­der, Dwayne Alexan­der and Jesse Nel­son—were killed out­side their home in Mc­Shine Lands at around 1 am yes­ter­day.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, Alexan­der said he was deeply con­cerned by the on­go­ing blood­shed but re­mind­ed the pub­lic that while law en­force­ment has a du­ty to se­cure the na­tion, the safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ties is al­so part­ly their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

He stressed that com­mu­ni­ty sup­port and part­ner­ship with au­thor­i­ties are cru­cial for de­ci­sive ac­tion against crim­i­nals.

“Start to re­spond to crim­i­nal be­hav­iour as a com­mu­ni­ty and don’t let any­one make de­ci­sions for your safe­ty,” he said. “This is not a call for any­one to arm them­selves or take the law in­to their own hands, but get to­geth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty and op­er­ate in a way that makes crim­i­nals un­com­fort­able. The more sup­port these crim­i­nals get, the more blood will flow. You can sit and do noth­ing, or you can do some­thing about it. This is about cit­i­zens con­fronting those who act as if they are above the law.”

When asked if he had a mes­sage for the per­pe­tra­tors of Fri­day’s killings, Alexan­der de­clined, say­ing he had “said every­thing he want­ed to,” but took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress fam­i­lies of those in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“These in­di­vid­u­als re­turn home to a place they con­sid­er safe, but peo­ple on the street know who they are and what they do,” he said. “I am call­ing on fam­i­lies … I am warn­ing you that if you en­cour­age peo­ple who are ‘hot,’ mean­ing those be­ing pur­sued by law en­force­ment or ri­val crim­i­nals, the con­se­quences are of­ten yours to bear. Stop sup­port­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers in crim­i­nal ways.”

He em­pha­sised that even those who do not di­rect­ly par­tic­i­pate in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties of­ten face se­ri­ous le­gal and po­ten­tial­ly fa­tal con­se­quences due to the ac­tions of rel­a­tives.

Ear­li­er this week, Alexan­der blamed the Op­po­si­tion for the con­tin­ued vi­o­lent crime, not­ing that their fail­ure to sup­port the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment) Bill lim­it­ed law en­force­ment’s abil­i­ty to pro­vide sus­tained, proac­tive polic­ing.

De­spite this, he main­tained that the gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to pro­pose new crime-fight­ing leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress crim­i­nal­i­ty.

When asked if he in­tend­ed to meet with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro or the head of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion in re­sponse to the mur­ders, Alexan­der said he pre­ferred not to have a “knee-jerk re­ac­tion” and trust­ed po­lice lead­er­ship to take the nec­es­sary steps.

“I like to sit, strate­gise, and then im­ple­ment,” he said. “I com­mu­ni­cate with the Com­mis­sion­er dai­ly, and he com­mu­ni­cates with his of­fi­cers on the ground. He knows what needs to be done in cer­tain ar­eas and does as much pre­ven­tion as pos­si­ble, but some­times we need more than pre­ven­tion.”