De­spite the coun­try end­ing 2024 with a to­tal of 624 homi­cides, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher says the TTPS had “sig­nif­i­cant re­sults” and “made sig­nif­i­cant progress” in 2024.

“Yes, we con­tin­ue to be af­fect­ed by the dread­ed homi­cide sta­tis­tics, but we have had sig­nif­i­cant re­sults. 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 ben­e­fit­ed from it. In this re­gard, the sub­stan­tial amount of work done by the TTPS in pre­vent­ing, de­tect­ing and pros­e­cut­ing crime is not to be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed,” the CoP said in a New Year’s mes­sage yes­ter­day.

“In 2024, you would have seen the TTPS de­liv­er mul­ti­ple his­toric seizures of drugs and il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion and the ar­rests and charge of sev­er­al per­sons in crit­i­cal mat­ters.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher ac­knowl­edged the chal­lenges of vi­o­lent crime that the coun­try faced in 2024, say­ing it was “like many oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion and around the world.”

She claimed the vi­o­lent crime came de­spite the valiant and ro­bust ef­forts of the TTPS and its law en­force­ment part­ners.

“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.

“But the TTPS re­mains ful­ly com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing and serv­ing our na­tion, and for 2025, we re­new our com­mit­ment to do bet­ter and to do so ef­fec­tive­ly,” she said.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she is invit­ing the pub­lic to join the TTPS on its jour­ney to re­duce vi­o­lent crime in 2025.

“Let’s re­solve to work to­geth­er to re­claim the peace and se­cu­ri­ty we cher­ish and once en­joyed in our homes and in our com­mu­ni­ties. Let’s work to­geth­er to save lives, the lives of both the vic­tims and the per­pe­tra­tors. 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,” she said.

“The TTPS un­der­stands its law en­force­ment role very well and will con­tin­ue to in­crease its ca­pac­i­ty and com­pe­tence in or­der to dis­charge that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the cit­i­zen­ry with the ut­most ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness every day that we show up for du­ty. It is our man­date, we will dis­charge it faith­ful­ly. We will not sur­ren­der or re­treat, and we are de­ter­mined to suc­ceed,” she ap­pealed.

The Gov­ern­ment in­sti­tut­ed the State of Emer­gency on Mon­day to give the po­lice spe­cial pow­ers to go af­ter crim­i­nal gangs the TTPS said was prepar­ing for reprisal at­tacks with high-pow­ered weapons.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence on Tues­day dis­cussing the SoE, Hare­wood-Christo­pher promised the TTPS would be suc­cess­ful in find­ing their tar­gets dur­ing the SoE.

“The ad­di­tion­al pow­ers avail­able to the po­lice ser­vice will em­pow­er it to use its in­tel­li­gence to launch very in­va­sive polic­ing op­er­a­tions tar­get­ing known and pro­lif­ic of­fend­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those in­volved with il­le­gal drugs, firearms and am­mu­ni­tions, and the com­mis­sion of vi­o­lent crimes, in­clud­ing kid­nap­ping, home in­va­sions and homi­cides ... We will con­tin­ue to use the pow­er le­git­i­mate­ly and guar­an­tee we will get the de­sired re­sults,” she said dur­ing the brief­ing.