Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant 

Sev­er­al ri­val gangs yes­ter­day ap­peared unit­ed for a few hours to al­low protests to take place across gang ter­ri­to­ries.

Port-of-Spain was quick­ly trans­formed in­to un­rest yes­ter­day morn­ing, as res­i­dents from Mor­vant, Laven­tille and East Port-of-Spain set de­bris on fire.

At one point, gun­men were fir­ing ran­dom­ly through win­dows and from rooftops of apart­ment build­ings on Nel­son and Dun­can Streets.

Sev­er­al build­ings, in­clud­ing busi­ness places and gov­ern­ment build­ings, were marred with bul­let holes and neigh­bours ran for cov­er as bul­lets pen­e­trat­ed win­dows and doors.

Po­lice and mem­bers of the De­fense Force re­spond­ed to sev­er­al un­rests in ar­eas in­clud­ing Sea Lots, Beetham, La­dy Young and Port-of-Spain in an at­tempt to re­store or­der.

Po­lice placed them­selves along var­i­ous en­try points to Port-of-Spain, stop­ping mo­torists from en­ter­ing the city cit­ing safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty risks. Some mo­torists say they were at­tacked while on the Beetham High­way, as their ve­hi­cles were stoned and dam­aged with for­eign ob­jects in­clud­ing glass bot­tles, wood and iron.

Many busi­ness­es in down­town Port-of-Spain shut their doors for the day, in­clud­ing banks, food out­lets and Movi­eTowne at In­vaders Bay.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and Safe City Op­er­a­tions Ex­pert, Com­man­der Garvin Heer­ah, said there was a need for bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion among law en­force­ment of­fi­cer.

“Clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion is al­ways im­por­tant but it’s es­pe­cial­ly cru­cial in the case of a cri­sis. Ef­fec­tive law en­force­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tion can make the dif­fer­ence be­tween keep­ing a han­dle on a sit­u­a­tion or watch­ing it spin out of con­trol,” Heer­ah said.

“It’s es­sen­tial for the TTPS to be able to com­mu­ni­cate and co­or­di­nate ef­fec­tive­ly with oth­er re­spond­ing au­thor­i­ties. They must al­so have strong in­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions in or­der to get the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol and pro­tect the pub­lic and the of­fi­cers in­volved,” Heer­ah said.