SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Gun vi­o­lence in T&T has reached cri­sis lev­els. Be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and De­cem­ber 26 last year, 614 peo­ple were killed in 551 shoot­ing in­ci­dents. There have been more than 90 shoot­ing in­ci­dents which re­sult­ed in mul­ti­ple ca­su­al­ties.

Last year, the mur­der rate was 624- the high­est ever record­ed in the coun­try’s his­to­ry - 33 dou­ble homi­cides, eight triple homi­cides, four quadru­ple homi­cides and one quin­tu­ple homi­cide. At least 87 per cent of these mur­ders were com­mit­ted with guns.

Last Mon­day, amid con­cerns that an up­surge in reprisal at­tacks among gangs posed a threat to pub­lic safe­ty, the Gov­ern­ment de­clared a three-month State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Pro­vi­sion 11 of the SoE peo­ple in pos­ses­sion of il­le­gal firearms, am­mu­ni­tion and ex­plo­sives to hand over their weapons with­out pros­e­cu­tion.

How­ev­er, gun and bal­lis­tic ex­pert Paul Na­hous, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith and gun deal­er Towfeek Ali be­lieve the coun­try’s first gun amnesty will not work, as crim­i­nals won’t eas­i­ly sur­ren­der their weapons.

The amnesty came as a sur­prise suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have re­ject­ed the idea.

In 2005, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph did not favour the ini­tia­tive and al­though there were 509 mur­ders in 2009, for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was against it.

Dwayne Gibbs, who served as po­lice com­mis­sion­er in 2011 un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, said a gun amnesty was not right for T&T.

Fast-tracked to 2019 when then-na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young said: “A gun amnesty works in cer­tain coun­tries and cer­tain cir­cum­stances. We don’t think that is ap­plic­a­ble to T&T.”

Young’s pre­de­ces­sor Ed­mund Dil­lon al­so dis­missed the idea.

Dur­ing his tenure as po­lice com­mis­sion­er, Grif­fith pro­posed a gun amnesty in 2020 for war­ring gang mem­bers who want­ed a truce. His rec­om­men­da­tion was re­ferred to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty for a fi­nal de­ci­sion but was not im­ple­ment­ed.

Even as the coun­try grap­pled with the coun­try’s sec­ond-high­est mur­der count of 605 in 2022, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds re­ject­ed the idea of an amnesty to re­move il­le­gal firearms from the streets. Con­tin­ues on page 11

So why did the Gov­ern­ment choose to im­pose gun amnesty a year lat­er?

Grif­fith be­lieves des­per­a­tion forced the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment the amnesty, claim­ing they have been “flip-flop­ping and grasp­ing at straws” be­cause their crime-fight­ing strate­gies to stem the flow of il­le­gal guns in­to the coun­try have not been work­ing.

Grif­fith said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley wants the blood­shed, may­hem and mur­ders to stop.

“The man wants this to end. He wants to re­duce crime but he can’t be­cause the two per­sons who hold the po­si­tions to deal with crime (Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er) don’t know what to do,” he said.

If the Gov­ern­ment could re­trieve one il­le­gal gun it would be ben­e­fi­cial, he said.

“I am not go­ing to dis­cred­it it.”

Grif­fith said while gun amnesties have worked in North Amer­i­can cities it would not be suc­cess­ful here. He ex­plained that those amnesties tar­get­ed law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who ac­quired il­le­gal weapons to pro­tect them­selves or their fam­i­lies when the crime got out of con­trol.

Once law and or­der were re­stored, a gun amnesty was of­fered for them to sur­ren­der their il­le­gal weapons.

In T&T, be­cause of the grow­ing num­ber of mur­ders, gun vi­o­lence, home in­va­sions and armed rob­beries, peo­ple feel the State can­not pro­tect them.

“So, the few per­sons who are usu­al­ly law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who would have ac­quired a weapon il­le­gal­ly to pro­tect their fam­i­lies, they would not hand it over be­cause they would still feel that they want to be pro­tect­ed…they need pro­tec­tion,” he said.

Grif­fith said the ma­jor­i­ty of crimes in the coun­try are com­mit­ted by crim­i­nals who have il­le­gal firearms as “their tool of choice.” He in­sist­ed that no crim­i­nal would give up his il­le­gal gun.

In 2021, Grif­fith es­ti­mat­ed there were 35,000 il­le­gal guns in the hands of crim­i­nals.

Dur­ing his tenure as top cop be­tween 900 to 1,000 guns were re­cov­ered an­nu­al­ly by the po­lice.

The crim­i­nals’ weapons of choice, AR-15s and AK-47s, are weapons used by sol­diers in war which can be sold on the black mar­ket for be­tween $40,000 to $52,000 each.

“If you have a weapon that can kill 30 peo­ple in three sec­onds . . . that is what the au­to­mat­ic weapon can do . . . that per­son should be deemed the equiv­a­lent to a ter­ror­ist,” Grif­fith said.

In­di­vid­u­als caught with such guns should not be grant­ed bail he said, adding: “Those are the things re­quired . . not an SoE.”

Grif­fith said Unit­ed States sources had con­firmed to him that 95 per cent of T&T’s il­le­gal firearms come in through our le­git­i­mate ports of en­try.

He point­ed out that con­tain­ers pass through the port with­out be­ing checked.

“In one night that one rogue cus­toms of­fi­cer, rogue dri­ver and rogue se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer at the port all work at the same time,” Grif­fith said, al­low­ing for unchecked con­tain­ers to be smug­gled out.

The po­lice re­moved 7,000 guns off the streets in a decade but in one night “those guns could all come back in­to the coun­try” stashed in those con­tain­ers, he said.

Grif­fith won­dered whether a crim­i­nal who hands over an il­le­gal gun that bal­lis­tic test­ing shows was linked to a mur­der would be giv­en an amnesty.

“It means that that per­son should now be charged when he hands it over . . . and I doubt the State would be fool­ish enough to clear some­one and give them an amnesty if the bal­lis­tic test­ing is done to show that that weapon when hand­ed over be­longs to a spe­cif­ic in­di­vid­ual,” he said.

Na­hous said any­one who hands over a gun that is traced back to mur­der or mul­ti­ple mur­ders should have ques­tions to an­swer.

“They should not walk free. The vic­tim’s fam­i­ly de­serve jus­tice,” he said, adding that any gang mem­ber who sur­ren­dered his gun to the po­lice would be con­sid­ered a snitch and his life and that of his fam­i­ly would be in jeop­ardy.

“He would be marked for death by mem­bers of his gang be­cause they would feel he leaked out in­for­ma­tion about their or­gan­i­sa­tion to the po­lice. They would no longer trust him.”

No gang mem­ber would be will­ing to take such a risk, he said.

Ali, own­er of the Firearms Train­ing In­sti­tute, doesn’t ex­pect a gun amnesty to reap any re­wards.

“Rob­bery is not the over­ar­ch­ing crime that is be­ing com­mit­ted with firearms now. Mur­der is,” he not­ed.

Ali said crim­i­nals would not hand over their weapons to the po­lice.

“That would open up an en­tire can of worms. The peo­ple who have il­le­gal firearms have ac­quired them, by and large, to do il­le­gal things, so why would they be­come com­pli­ant with the reg­u­la­tions or any form of leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sion?” he asked.

Adding that the reg­u­la­tion did not make sense, Ali said these guns give crim­i­nals pow­er and con­trol which they would not want to part with far less hand over to the po­lice.