One day af­ter a loader em­ployed with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) was gunned down while on the job, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor met with the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to dis­cuss re­vised se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols ahead of Car­ni­val 2024 cel­e­bra­tions.

A me­dia re­lease from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty yes­ter­day re­vealed that of­fi­cials from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, the T&T Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) and the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and the po­lice at­tend­ed the meet­ing on Mon­day.

In the re­lease, ACP Kelvern Thomp­son said new se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives will be added to the cur­rent slew of po­lice strate­gies to en­sure the safe­ty of cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors alike as the height of the Car­ni­val sea­son ap­proach­es.

“Some of these strate­gies were put in place last year and were suc­cess­ful. We are work­ing with the NCC and oth­er bod­ies, and with our col­leagues in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, to im­ple­ment more tar­get­ed mea­sures this year,” Thomp­son said.

The ini­tia­tives in­clude mon­i­tor­ing of CCTV plat­forms at the sites of dif­fer­ent events, week­ly meet­ings in the lead-up to the main Car­ni­val rev­el­ry and stronger part­ner­ships be­tween po­lice op­er­a­tional units like the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF), the CID and gang units to quell se­cu­ri­ty threats.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment af­ter the meet­ing, TTPA pres­i­dent Jerome ‘Rome’ Pre­cil­la said he was op­ti­mistic the meet­ing would lead to en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty for fes­tiv­i­ties. He not­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned over flare-ups in vi­o­lence in and around Port-of-Spain, adding that such dis­cus­sions were crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of any large-scale ini­tia­tive.

“Every­one is con­cerned about the safe­ty, we wish it could be much bet­ter and every­one is aware of what is tak­ing place,” Pre­cil­la said.

“So, both the pro­mot­ers and the po­lice this sea­son … will be the first sea­son you will see us work­ing ex­tra tight­ly to­geth­er so that fetes and the pa­rade as a whole are much safer.”

Al­so con­tact­ed, Dar­i­an Mar­celle, who rep­re­sent­ed the NCC at the meet­ing, said while the re­cent mur­der at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah did not prompt the meet­ing, it was dis­cussed as a con­cern to the stake­hold­ers.

De­scrib­ing Akeil Archer’s mur­der as an “un­for­tu­nate loss”, he said con­cerns from truck dri­vers and load­ers were brought to his at­ten­tion but as­sured that the com­mis­sion was work­ing to pro­vide a safe work­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

“On Mon­day there was a po­lice pres­ence but mea­sures have been put in place to en­sure that there’s a po­lice pres­ence to cre­ate a sense of safe­ty and well-be­ing,” Mar­celle said.

“I know the man­ag­er of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion met with his staff and spoke with them to hear their con­cerns. In­ter­nal­ly, we have stepped up our own se­cu­ri­ty at the NCC.”

Mar­celle added that he was com­fort­ed by the as­sur­ances and plans out­lined in the meet­ing and stressed that col­lab­o­ra­tion from dif­fer­ent agen­cies would en­hance the or­gan­i­sa­tion of any plan.

On Sun­day af­ter­noon, 26-year-old Archer was stand­ing in the tray of a Maz­da T3500 truck that was about to leave the paved part of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, near the Pad­dock.

A white, four-door, pick-up truck drove in­to the path of the ve­hi­cle block­ing it, and gun­men got out and chased a now flee­ing Archer and shot him to death.

One rel­a­tive has since said that Archer may have been tar­get­ed be­cause of where he lived by gangs from a ri­val neigh­bour­hood. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the sa­van­nah on Tues­day, work­ers said safe­ty was still a con­cern af­ter Archer’s mur­der.

Ear­ly on Mon­day morn­ing, Omar Hunte, 39, was gunned down af­ter buy­ing break­fast at the Femmes Du Chalet, more pop­u­lar­ly known as the Break­fast Shed, on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

Po­lice in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion have since com­plained that a lack of ve­hi­cles have ham­pered ef­forts to re­spond to crimes and al­so ini­ti­ate crime sup­pres­sion ex­er­cis­es like pa­trols.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the TTPS cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit on Mon­day for com­ment on these con­cerns but did not get a re­sponse up to press time yes­ter­day.