An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As the State of Emer­gency (SoE) en­tered one week yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro de­scribed it as “a piv­otal mo­ment for law en­force­ment” in which the true might of the men and women sworn to up­hold the law was high­light­ed.

In a video record­ing last evening, Gue­var­ro praised of­fi­cers for their com­mit­ment to the job, say­ing, “I have wit­nessed not just the op­er­a­tional might of our of­fi­cers, but their courage, re­straint and re­silience un­der im­mense pres­sure.”

Gue­var­ro stressed, “Each ac­tion was dri­ven by in­tel­li­gence, cal­i­brat­ed for im­pact, and ex­e­cut­ed with pre­ci­sion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.”

Of the 590 co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tions across the coun­try, a to­tal of 231 pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers had been ar­rest­ed up to 6 pm yes­ter­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed.

As part of the SoE rubric—3,837 ve­hic­u­lar and prop­er­ty search­es were con­duct­ed; while 314 traf­fic ex­er­cis­es were car­ried out.

Dur­ing the past week, law­men re­cov­ered 27 il­le­gal firearms along with 339 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion—as well as over 7.5 ki­los of mar­i­jua­na and 120 grammes of co­caine.

This, the top cop claimed, will con­tribute to “un­der­min­ing the crim­i­nal economies that fu­el com­mu­ni­ty in­sta­bil­i­ty.”

Not­ing the week’s defin­ing mo­ments as the suc­cess­ful res­cue of kid­napped vic­tims Jankie Satie Karim on Ju­ly 21 in Matu­ra; and Ryan Singh and Keer­an Latch­man on Ju­ly 24 in Va­len­cia, Gue­var­ro said, “This was a tes­ta­ment to swift co­or­di­na­tion, tac­ti­cal pre­ci­sion and the brav­ery of our of­fi­cers un­der in­tense con­di­tions.”

He said the res­cues not on­ly neu­tralised threats but re­stored hope and reaf­firmed the pub­lic’s trust in the TTPS.

Equal­ly in­spir­ing, he said, was the ac­tion by an off-du­ty of­fi­cer who foiled an armed rob­bery at a casi­no in Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day, which re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of the three sus­pects.

Com­mend­ing all the spe­cial­ist units of the TTPS, es­pe­cial­ly the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF) for its role in ex­e­cut­ing 130 search­es and cap­tur­ing ten “high val­ue tar­gets,” Gue­var­ro said this was an ex­am­ple of just how col­lab­o­ra­tion and in­tel­li­gence shar­ing could lead to ben­e­fi­cial gains in the fight against crime.

He in­sist­ed, “We are ap­ply­ing pres­sure with pur­pose. Our of­fi­cers are strik­ing the right bal­ance be­tween force and fair­ness.”

The CoP al­so de­fend­ed his men and women, say­ing, “We are not in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly tar­get­ing com­mu­ni­ties. We are sur­gi­cal­ly dis­man­tling crim­i­nal threats and we are do­ing so with ac­count­abil­i­ty at every lev­el.”

He said the last week had led to a reawak­en­ing among law en­force­ment, as of­fi­cers were, “step­ping up with re­newed pur­pose and the pub­lic re­spond­ing with cau­tious op­ti­mism.”

“This is on­ly the be­gin­ning. As the SoE evolves, we will sharp­en our fo­cus, deep­en our en­gage­ments and re­main trans­par­ent with the pub­lic. Our mis­sion is clear and our mo­men­tum is re­al. We stand ready to serve you with pride.”