Lee An­na Ma­haraj

The Rose Hill R.C. School is set to re­sume school op­er­a­tions on Mon­day, ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds, and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Ear­la Christo­pher.

This fol­lows Mon­day’s shoot­ing in­ci­dent in Laven­tille, where gun­fire from war­ring gangs echoed in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Speak­ing this morn­ing at the school’s com­pound, Hinds said that school op­er­a­tions must not be de­sert­ed.

“The gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion is that the busi­ness of the state, the busi­ness of the school must pro­ceed undis­turbed and un­per­turbed, and this is why a large chunk of the na­tion’s bud­get is di­rect­ed to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” Hinds said.

He vis­it­ed the school, along with the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er and a po­lice en­tourage, to meet the Qual­i­ty As­sur­ance Man­ag­er of the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board and Man­age­ment, Ster­ling Ja­cobs.

Christo­pher added: “Our chil­dren, our na­tion’s chil­dren must be able to en­joy all ameni­ties, and they must be able to en­joy their child­hood. Crim­i­nal el­e­ments in this com­mu­ni­ty will not be al­lowed to shut down the school, and I have as­sured Mr Ja­cobs that this school will be re­opened on Mon­day morn­ing.

I have al­so as­sured him and mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, that the chil­dren and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers could move around as they de­sire.

The po­lice will be work­ing in tan­dem with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fense Force, (TTDF)”.