An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

With four days left to go be­fore the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ends on April 13, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials are work­ing dili­gent­ly to fi­nalise charges to be brought against some peo­ple who have been de­tained. These charges could be laid on or be­fore the end of this week.

Con­firm­ing this dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon, ex­plained while some of the 50 de­tainees would be re­leased when it ex­pires on Sun­day, this would not pre­vent in­ves­ti­ga­tors from lay­ing charges lat­er on.

Se­nior mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) met on Mon­day to dis­cuss how they would ad­dress turn­ing in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven da­ta in­to ac­tion­able of­fences. The group of 50 that were de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) re­main in­car­cer­at­ed at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC), San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma.

Un­der para­graph two of the Sched­ule of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2024, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty can or­der a de­ten­tion to pre­vent an in­di­vid­ual from “act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty or pub­lic or­der in de­fence of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ad­mit­ting that no charges had as yet been prof­fered against any of the de­tainees up to yes­ter­day, Si­mon as­sured, “There are per­sons who are look­ing at the charges to de­vel­op and the num­ber of per­sons to be charged.”

As­sur­ing that charges would be prof­fered against some by the end of this week, he said there were medi­um- and long-term plans to con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Si­mon ex­plained, “The ma­jor­i­ty of per­sons ar­rest­ed dur­ing the SoE were gang mem­bers, and most of the cas­es that we are look­ing at come un­der that gang are­na, and mak­ing out a gang case, re­gard­less of where you go in any ju­ris­dic­tion in this world, you would see it re­al­ly takes a con­sid­er­able amount of time to do and ex­e­cute, and we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing that here.”

How­ev­er, he added, “The SoE, though, has al­lowed us to gain some ground on a num­ber of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, so we ex­pect to see some suc­cess­es com­ing out of that.” He said the in­ves­ti­ga­tions were not statute-barred and that charges can and would be laid lat­er on, de­spite the fact that some per­sons would be re­leased on Sun­day. Al­though there have been no chal­lenges yet from those de­tained, the au­thor­i­ties are an­tic­i­pat­ing it will come.

Si­mon said, how­ev­er, law en­force­ment of­fi­cers con­duct­ed ac­tiv­i­ties with­in the pa­ra­me­ters out­lined in the SoE reg­u­la­tions to up­hold every­one’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. Mean­while, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin pre­sent­ed sta­tis­tics to show the suc­cess­es gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the past three months. There was a marked de­cline in the ar­eas of homi­cides; vi­o­lent crimes; wound­ings and shoot­ings; rob­beries; prop­er­ty crimes; and mo­tor ve­hi­cle lar­ce­ny since the year be­gan com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year.

There was a 32 per cent de­cline in homi­cides, with the toll mov­ing from 151 in 2024 to 105 for the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od this year. In the cat­e­go­ry of wound­ings and shoot­ings, of­fi­cials record­ed a 33 per cent re­duc­tion as they moved from 206 in­ci­dents in 2024 com­pared to 137 in 2025.

A to­tal of 708 rob­beries were record­ed in 2024, com­pared to 433 this year—a 39 per cent de­crease.

He praised his of­fi­cers for se­cur­ing these wins.