Crime in T&T be­came one of the main is­sues on the agen­da when Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley chaired a two-day Cab­i­net re­treat which end­ed yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that on Fri­day act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob met with Row­ley, who is chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, to dis­cuss crime, mat­ters in­volv­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, where the re­treat was held.

The re­treat, which start­ed on Fri­day, was at­tend­ed by Cab­i­net min­is­ters in­clud­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert. Min­is­ters of State were not part of the re­treat.

Acting Commissioner of Police McDonald Jacob.

ROBERTO CODALLO

With crime and mur­ders reach­ing un­prece­dent­ed lev­els in the coun­try and cit­i­zens ex­press­ing wor­ry, fear and pan­ic, the meet­ing be­tween both men be­came a crit­i­cal item on the agen­da.

On Fri­day night and yes­ter­day, there were two brazen killings in Port-of-Spain and D'Abadie, bring­ing the mur­der count close to 300.

This fol­lows sev­er­al mur­ders in the last two weeks.

Two weeks ago, res­i­dents of East Port-of-Spain staged a fiery protest and blocked off roads lead­ing in­to Port-of-Spain for the po­lice-in­volved killings of Isa­iah Roberts, 16, Leonar­do Williams, 17 and Fabi­an Richards, 22, on In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain.

The is­sue of civil­ians be­ing killed by mem­bers of the TTPS has sparked out­rage in com­mu­ni­ties, with res­i­dents voic­ing their dis­plea­sure that of­fi­cers have been abus­ing their pow­er as they have be­come "too trig­ger-hap­py" while car­ry­ing out their du­ties.

In the last few months, sev­er­al of­fi­cers have come un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) for civil­ian killings, in­clud­ing one of their own col­leagues–PC Clarence Gilkes in Rich Plain, Diego Mar­tin, in April.

Last month, the PCA con­clud­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Gilkes' fa­tal shoot­ing, stat­ing that of­fi­cers abused their pow­er and de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­led Ja­cob as he was shot by one of his col­leagues.

Be­tween Thurs­day and Fri­day night, eight po­lice of­fi­cers–one of whom is a sergeant–were ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing a ma­jor break­through in a two-year-old homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fa­tal shoot­ing of three men in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant.

Sev­en of the of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly fired their weapons re­peat­ed­ly, killing Joel Ja­cob, Noel Di­a­mond and Is­rael Moses al­most in­stant­ly dur­ing a stop-and-search near the Au­to Gu­ru Build­ing, Ju­man Dri­ve, on June 27, 2020.

The coun­try has al­so wit­nessed a spike in gang vi­o­lence, home in­va­sions, rob­beries and il­le­gal weapons and am­mu­ni­tions en­ter­ing the coun­try this year.

 With vi­o­lent crime com­ing in all di­rec­tions, Row­ley, speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence ear­li­er this month, stat­ed that he was con­sid­er­ing de­clar­ing vi­o­lence a pub­lic health emer­gency. How­ev­er, he could not give de­tails on how this would be achieved.

"Notwith­stand­ing our best ef­forts, every sin­gle day there is a spate of vi­o­lent crime, large­ly dri­ven, but not on­ly dri­ven by firearms and de­fy­ing log­ic. I just raised it as a mat­ter that we have to fo­cus on, it’s a spe­cial­ist area, and it in­volves the en­tire na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty see­ing it that way. I don’t think we are ready for the time­line yet,” Row­ley said.

Row­ley said it was a pro­pos­al the Gov­ern­ment was con­tem­plat­ing be­fore the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in March 2020.

He said at that time, it would have been im­ple­ment­ed un­der the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry as an out­reach and train­ing.

"It is some­thing that we need to go back to be­cause this is more than just the evening news and some­body ac­ci­den­tal­ly get­ting some­thing done. It is just too preva­lent, and it is, un­for­tu­nate­ly, de­sen­si­tis­ing the pop­u­la­tion," he said.

The PM ad­mit­ted that he was trou­bled by the lev­el of crime.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga did not re­ply to a query on Fri­day as to what was be­ing dis­cussed in the re­treat.

Out­side of crime, the coun­try has been strug­gling with the econ­o­my and ways to deal with ris­ing food prices, in­creas­ing lo­cal food pro­duc­tion and poor road con­di­tions, flood­ing, un­em­ploy­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, pover­ty, job cre­ation, and health mat­ters.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said dis­cus­sions were ex­pect­ed to have in­clud­ed up­dates on work by the re­spec­tive min­istries to con­tribute to over­all plan­ning for the 2023 Bud­get that is ex­pect­ed to be de­liv­ered in ear­ly Oc­to­ber.

An­oth­er source said Cab­i­net mem­bers were look­ing at the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al sce­nar­ios and "analysing and strate­gis­ing" for the man­age­ment of the coun­try.

PM Row­ley had host­ed a two-day Cab­i­net re­treat in Feb­ru­ary, which in­volved Cab­i­net min­is­ters and meet­ings with Gov­ern­ment MPs.  

A Cab­i­net reshuf­fle fol­lowed in March.

 Fol­low­ing suc­cess in the Au­gust 2020 poll, the Gov­ern­ment held a three-day re­treat in Sep­tem­ber 2021 in To­ba­go pre­ced­ing pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2022 Bud­get.

Row­ley will host a 10.30 am press con­fer­ence to­mor­row at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, one day af­ter the mask man­date end­ed.–ad­di­tion­al re­port­ing by Gail Alexan­der