The Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) has ques­tioned the ef­fec­tive­ness of the State of Emer­gency (SOE) amid con­tin­u­ing mur­ders across Trinidad.

"Un­so­licit­ed re­marks from a dis­be­liev­ing pub­lic seem to in­di­cate to us that no one can dis­cern any vis­i­ble dif­fer­ence in the at­mos­phere or state of law en­force­ment in Trinidad & To­ba­go de­spite the ex­is­tence of the SOE," DO­MA said in a state­ment on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Their state­ment came af­ter a cou­ple was found dead in Cu­mu­to on Thurs­day night. An­oth­er Princes Town man was al­so dis­cov­ered dead on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

As of Sat­ur­day morn­ing, there were nine mur­ders for the year so far.

DO­MA added, "Mur­der­ous home in­va­sions and un­ex­plained killings of all types of in­di­vid­u­als con­tin­ue when­ev­er, wher­ev­er and at what­ev­er time the mur­der­er’s de­sire."

They la­belled it "a free­ness to kill."

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said the "fan­fare" of con­cern by Min­is­ters, Com­mis­sion­ers and Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers for the safe­ty of state pros­e­cu­tors and the ju­di­cia­ry is mis­placed.

"It seems to por­tray an­oth­er lack of re­gard for the com­mon-sense of the pub­lic.  With­out ex­cep­tion, the most ef­fec­tive way of pro­tect­ing state pros­e­cu­tors and the ju­di­cia­ry is to ar­rest, pros­e­cute and con­vict who­ev­er killed pros­e­cu­tor Hec­tor. Solv­ing and pros­e­cut­ing crime is the best de­ter­rent that ex­ists for cen­turies," DO­MA said.

They added that the in­abil­i­ty to solve any crime "has con­vinced crim­i­nals of their free­dom to com­mit crime."