The Down­town Mer­chants and Own­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) says T&T is in a “ma­jor tail­spin” and has called on Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters, Op­po­si­tion MPs and oth­er of­fi­cials to bring the coun­try back to some lev­el of safe­ty and peace.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the mur­der of at­tor­ney and spe­cial state pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor and the de­c­la­ra­tion of the State of Emer­gency, which was pre­ced­ed by the vi­o­lent and gang-mo­ti­vat­ed mur­ders of five men in Laven­tille, DO­MA said, “We want ac­tion and re­sults.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion, which rep­re­sents busi­ness­peo­ple in the cap­i­tal Port-of-Spain, said the past five days in this coun­try had led to dis­be­lief among cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the heels of T&T record­ing its high­est mur­der count of 624 for 2024. It not­ed, how­ev­er, that the TTPS said progress was made in the fight against crime.

DO­MA said, “The un­speak­able hor­ror of a high­ly re­spect­ed and no­ble state at­tor­ney be­ing as­sas­si­nat­ed in full view of his two young chil­dren and hun­dreds of parish­ioners, is the news that it was this event it­self that may have prompt­ed the State of Emer­gency, with no in­for­ma­tion as to why at­tor­ney (Ran­dall) Hec­tor was not be­ing pro­tect­ed.”

DO­MA added that it did not “want to add to an al­ready se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion of de­spair and dis­be­lief and have giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion to not stat­ing that our coun­try is now in the midst of an­oth­er ma­jor cri­sis.”

“We are not, how­ev­er, giv­en to dis­re­spect­ing the in­tel­li­gence of the cit­i­zens of our coun­try with such state­ments. Trinidad and To­ba­go is to­day, in our view, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing the events of the past five days, in a ma­jor tail­spin,” it said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion added, “No ex­pla­na­tions or con­fer­ences can quell the de­spair and ap­pre­hen­sion which is build­ing rapid­ly across all stra­ta of Trinidad and To­ba­go so­ci­ety. A mas­sive sense of ur­gency should al­ready have been on dis­play with re­spect to the as­sas­si­na­tion of state pros­e­cu­tor Hec­tor. Such ur­gency should have been shown if on­ly to com­mu­ni­cate to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that the Gov­ern­ment is feel­ing the emer­gency that the cit­i­zens are feel­ing.”

DO­MA said T&T is “mur­mur­ing and talk­ing in in­creas­ing tones now about the TTPS ex­ist­ing in a bub­ble, in which the so­ci­ety is be­ing ac­cused of be­ing a par­ty to crime.”

It added that “re­marks about crime be­ing an ‘all of so­ci­ety prob­lem’ are a dis­re­spect to the huge ma­jor­i­ty of the hard­work­ing, de­cent peo­ple of our coun­try.”

“We there­fore feel en­ti­tled to state bold­ly that more is now ex­pect­ed from our men and women in blue.”

Adding the time for talk has come and gone, DO­MA called on Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion to bring re­sults.

“We do not need more press con­fer­ences and me­dia state­ments. Get out from your min­is­te­r­i­al of­fices, from your op­po­si­tion bench­es and from your desks in var­i­ous head­quar­ters and get down in­to the po­lice sta­tions to find out what is hap­pen­ing and what is not hap­pen­ing and what as­sis­tance can be pro­vid­ed,” DO­MA said.

“Get all hands on deck from cap­tain to cook and bring this coun­try with­in some mea­sure of safe­ty and peace for the great ma­jor­i­ty of these of our cit­i­zens whose spir­its are di­min­ished by the lack of re­spect for their in­tel­li­gence, which is on full dis­play with every word that is spo­ken in all your con­fer­ences and me­dia events. We want ac­tion and re­sults.”

DO­MA said it had made the call in ho­n­our of the life of Hec­tor and the “mul­ti­tude of de­cent cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”