Sev­er­al knives, ice picks, scis­sors, glass bot­tles and im­pro­vised weapons were be­lieved to have been aban­doned by “trou­ble­mak­ers” en­ter­ing down­town Port-of-Spain, po­lice said as sev­er­al road­blocks and check­points were es­tab­lished on the out­skirts of the city ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The checks were part of a height­ened se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence, where the TTPS, the Port-of-Spain City Po­lice, Ca­nine Unit, the Tran­sit Po­lice and the De­fence Force col­lab­o­rat­ed to “fil­ter out,” weapons and oth­er il­lic­it items.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, head of the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID), Snr Supt Win­ston Ma­haraj, said the ef­forts to weed out crim­i­nals be­gan be­fore they could even reach the city’s bound­aries, with ran­dom road checks and “stop and search” ex­er­cis­es on the Beetham stretch of the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR).

Pedes­tri­ans walk­ing in­to the city from near­by com­mu­ni­ties were not spared as they were al­so sub­ject­ed to search ex­er­cis­es as po­lice set up var­i­ous check­points along Besson Street and the Light­house op­po­site City Gate.

Ma­haraj, who vis­it­ed both check­points ear­ly yes­ter­day, said that sev­er­al weapons were found and seized by po­lice on du­ty, by peo­ple who aban­doned them as a “last ditch at­tempt” to avoid ar­rest.

He said the ear­li­est op­er­a­tions be­gan around 1 am, es­ti­mat­ing that 1,000 peo­ple would have passed through the trans­port hub by 4 am alone.

“We are search­ing per­sons dis­em­bark­ing the maxi taxis, and mak­ing their way in­to the city cen­tres.

“In the most part the cit­i­zens have been sup­port­ive and co­op­er­at­ing with us, we have every in­ten­tion of mak­ing this J’Ou­vert a safe and mem­o­rable one.”

Com­ment­ing on the turnout of po­lice of­fi­cers, Ma­haraj ad­mit­ted that while there were some “late­com­ers,” there had been no ma­jor re­source chal­lenges af­fect­ing man­pow­er and ef­fi­cien­cies, as teams of of­fi­cers were ro­tat­ed.

“There has been a slow but steady turnout in terms of the turnout of of­fi­cers for the CID. We have a sec­ond shift com­ing in at 8 am this morn­ing (Mon­day morn­ing), con­tin­u­ing un­til the end of J’Ou­vert and once this lo­ca­tion has been set­tled, they will be re-de­ployed fur­ther west in­to Ari­api­ta Av­enue to aug­ment the strength of of­fi­cers there.

“There are a few late­com­ers, as ex­pect­ed, but so far so good.”

When asked about the se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments for Port-of-Spain’s J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions af­ter the Old Mas King and Queen com­pe­ti­tion in South Quay, Port-of-Spain, May­or Al­der­man Chin­ua Al­leyne com­ment­ed on the heavy po­lice pres­ence, not­ing that safe­ty was a ma­jor as­pect of a suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence.

“It’s im­por­tant for us to make sure that we don’t on­ly pro­duce a Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence that is safe and se­cure, but that peo­ple feel safe and se­cure as well.

“So I would like to thank all the mem­bers of the City Po­lice Ser­vice, the TTPS and the TT De­fence Force that have com­mit­ted them­selves to what we’re do­ing in down­town Port-of-Spain is a safe ex­pe­ri­ence and some­thing we can con­tin­ue to be proud of.

“So I am most cer­tain­ly pleased,” he said.