Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

Af­ter three break-ins this week, a Christ­mas Day op­er­a­tion led by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der brought re­sults for the po­lice, af­ter four ban­dits were ar­rest­ed while at­tempt­ing to rob the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) fa­cil­i­ty in Mau­si­ca.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said po­lice now in­tend to take de­ci­sive ac­tion against any­one steal­ing gov­ern­ment prop­er­ty. He said he re­ceived the in­for­ma­tion about the rob­bery in the ear­ly hours of yes­ter­day (Christ­mas Day).

“Two o’clock in the morn­ing, we get a call. We start­ed to mo­bilise; I spoke to (In­spec­tor Ish­mael) Pitt, and I spoke to an of­fi­cer, who then start­ed to co­or­di­nate. We start­ed to move, we went to the ground, we blocked cer­tain en­trances, and as a re­sult of that, that came about... We in­tend to take some dras­tic, lis­ten to the words, you know, dras­tic mea­sures against per­sons who at­tempt that go­ing for­ward af­ter to­day,” Alexan­der said.

He said the group, rang­ing in ages from 25 to 45 and all from east Trinidad, had al­ready made one trip with items from the con­tain­ers but did not ex­pect to be in­ter­cept­ed by the po­lice.

Of­fi­cers from the North­ern Di­vi­sion, Ari­ma CID and the Na­tion­al Drug Task Force were part of the op­er­a­tion.

Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, po­lice re­cov­ered stolen items, in­clud­ing a quan­ti­ty of mat­tress­es and sev­er­al white plas­tic ta­bles, which were con­firmed to be the prop­er­ty of the ODPM.

The ta­bles were found in­side a Nis­san Wingroad, while the mat­tress­es and oth­er items were dis­cov­ered hid­den in bush­es near the com­pound.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the ODPM said stor­age con­tain­ers con­tain­ing re­lief and emer­gency re­sponse sup­plies were un­law­ful­ly breached on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions and as­sets in­tend­ed for na­tion­al dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and emer­gency re­sponse were tar­get­ed.

How­ev­er, the ODPM as­sured the pub­lic that na­tion­al dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ties re­main ful­ly op­er­a­tional.

“Crit­i­cal sup­plies and re­sponse mech­a­nisms have not been com­pro­mised, and con­tin­gency mea­sures are firm­ly in place to en­sure un­in­ter­rupt­ed emer­gency sup­port should the need arise,” it added.

Ad­dress­ing the sit­u­a­tion, Alexan­der said, “Let me tell you some­thing. If some­thing were to hap­pen in this coun­try to­day, to­mor­row, tonight, or any in oth­er part of the coun­try, those would be some of the things that we’ll send to them to try to ease or bring them to some lev­el of com­fort. And in­stead of that, you all tak­ing it and go­ing and thief and hid­ing. No. We ain’t tak­ing that.”

But even with this stern warn­ing, the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter had a Christ­mas wish for mem­bers of the pop­u­la­tion in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly the younger peo­ple. He ad­vised them to go “find some­thing pos­i­tive to do.”

“Let me guide you along a par­tic­u­lar line. It’s all kind of fun­ny, but com­ing from me, it is re­al. We have to learn, and we, I mean peo­ple who look like me, have to learn to stop sit­ting down and wait­ing and hop­ing or think­ing that some­body owes you some­thing for be­ing here,” he said.

Alexan­der said he knows many peo­ple who were in­volved in crime but de­cid­ed to change their lives.

And for those who don’t heed his mes­sage, Alexan­der said there will be con­se­quences, even on Christ­mas Day.

“Let me tell you some­thing. I am not like them. Some­times, you know, you need to go the ex­tra mile,” he said.

The min­is­ter thanked TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent, ASP Pitt, and com­mend­ed Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro for his col­lab­o­ra­tion, say­ing it had brought a new vigour to the ser­vice.

“This suc­cess­ful op­er­a­tion is a tes­ta­ment to the vig­i­lance, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and com­mit­ment of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” Alexan­der said.

“Crime does not take a hol­i­day, and nei­ther do our se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies. We will con­tin­ue to pur­sue those who threat­en pub­lic safe­ty and na­tion­al re­silience, and we will en­sure that those re­spon­si­ble are brought be­fore the courts.

“This Gov­ern­ment takes crime se­ri­ous­ly, and we will act de­ci­sive­ly to pro­tect the peo­ple and in­sti­tu­tions of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”