As po­lice op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin says they do not be­lieve there is a need for a cur­few to aid in re­strict­ing the move­ments of crim­i­nals.

Of the 14 mur­ders record­ed as of yes­ter­day morn­ing, sev­en were re­port­ed to have tak­en place at night or in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing.

How­ev­er, asked yes­ter­day whether the TTPS would weigh a cur­few to cur­tail the pub­lic’s move­ment at night in­to the ear­ly morn­ing pe­ri­od yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said they did not need any ad­di­tion­al mech­a­nisms to clamp down on crime.

He said since the be­gin­ning of the SoE, ad­di­tion­al re­sources had been de­ployed af­ter dark to as­sist in crime sup­pres­sion op­er­a­tions, adding that ex­tra fo­cus was placed in ar­eas where mur­ders oc­curred.

“The TTPS is con­stant­ly look­ing at the trends and the sta­tis­tics to guide us, so it’s in­tel­li­gence-led, so we won’t be putting any un­due strain on the pub­lic. What we’re do­ing is tak­ing an open ap­proach where we use on­ly the pow­ers giv­en to the Com­mis­sion­er and the TTPS to show ba­si­cal­ly, as we con­tin­ue to use those things to show that we can still get crime un­der con­trol,” Ben­jamin said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

“I think we’re do­ing pret­ty well when we com­pare to last year... cer­tain­ly we have seen the num­ber of mur­ders have slowed down by half and we will con­tin­ue to push by look­ing at the trends and al­low­ing ef­fec­tive in­tel­li­gence to lead us.”

Ben­jamin said ex­tra re­sources af­ter dark al­so as­sist­ed in pre­vent­ing lar­ce­ny of mo­tor ve­hi­cles, which he said ap­peared to be more preva­lent dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

Dur­ing a po­lice me­dia brief­ing on Sackville Street ear­li­er yes­ter­day, ACP North-West and Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Richard Smith said there was a 44 per cent drop in the num­ber of mur­ders for the year thus far in com­par­i­son to last year at the same time. Dis­ag­gre­gat­ing the fig­ures, Smith said as of yes­ter­day morn­ing, there were on­ly 14 mur­ders com­pared to 25 for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

Oth­er cat­e­gories of vi­o­lent crimes (wound­ings, shoot­ings, kid­nap­pings, kid­nap­pings for ran­som, rob­beries and sex­u­al of­fences) were al­so on the de­cline.

Asked if the drop in dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of crimes could be at­trib­uted to the SoE, Smith said it was tes­ta­ment to the height­ened po­lice pres­ence and re­solve of of­fi­cers.

“To see this re­duc­tion, it means that we are, in fact, out there, go­ing af­ter the pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers. ... So, we have been go­ing af­ter these per­sons, we have been sat­u­rat­ing these com­mu­ni­ties with pa­trols and op­er­a­tions and we will con­tin­ue to do that.”

Smith said po­lice had seized 37 guns for the year thus far, com­pared to 15 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

When asked how many per­sons had been ar­rest­ed or charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Leg­is­la­tion since the be­gin­ning of the SoE, Smith said he did not have that in­for­ma­tion but said the po­lice had in­creased their fo­cus on or­gan­ised crime units, re­fer­ring to the house ar­rest of a pur­port­ed gang leader from east Port-of-Spain.

He added that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to gang ac­tiv­i­ties could be time-con­sum­ing, not­ing that sig­nif­i­cant ev­i­dence was need­ed for charges to be laid and con­vic­tions se­cured in court.

“We must meet a cer­tain thresh­old in or­der to send them for fur­ther de­ten­tion, which is why I’m say­ing again that it’s a te­dious in­ves­ti­ga­tion, some­thing we must be able to sat­is­fy in any court of law, so we don’t want to do any hap­haz­ard in­ves­ti­ga­tions, we want to do it in a par­tic­u­lar, struc­tured way so we won’t be mak­ing any mis­takes.

“We re­al­ly want to do this (in­ves­ti­ga­tion) in a prop­er way and we want to stay with­in the time­lines that we were giv­en un­der the reg­u­la­tion as it re­lates to the de­ten­tion of these per­sons.”

Smith al­so said giv­en the height­ened po­lice pres­ence in dif­fer­ent ar­eas, sus­pect­ed gang­sters were flee­ing to dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try to avoid de­tec­tion by law en­force­ment and urged res­i­dents to re­port any strangers in their com­mu­ni­ties. He stressed that hav­ing sus­pi­cious fig­ures in their neigh­bour­hoods could have dire con­se­quences.

“They (strangers) may be a dan­ger to you and your fam­i­lies, but we are in fact go­ing af­ter these gangs,” Smith said.

Peo­ple mur­dered af­ter dark for 2025

1. Kegan Bar­bour, 39, was gunned down at Laven­tille Road, San Juan, at 1 am on Jan­u­ary 1

2. Beris Joseph, 15, was shot dead in Black Rock, To­ba­go, on the night of Jan­u­ary 4. His body was found the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

3. Nigel Latch­man, 19, was shot and killed near St Barb’s Road, Bel­mont, at 7.30 pm on Jan­u­ary 7

4. Mon­ty Ford, 58, was gunned down at Ba­ta Cir­cu­lar, Diego Mar­tin, at 10.45 pm on Jan­u­ary 10.

5. Ja­son Mo­hammed was shot and killed on Rochard Road, Pe­nal, at 8 pm on Jan­u­ary 12.

6. Hale Ju­nior Besson, 18, was shot and killed along the Diego Mar­tin Road, Diego Mar­tin, at 9.20 pm on Jan­u­ary 13

7. Dar­ren Fran­cis, 36, was beat­en to death on Race­course Road, Cara­po, at 10.05 pm on Jan­u­ary 14.