Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds says the sit­u­a­tion where two T&T Prison Ser­vice firearms were seen hang­ing from a tree in a video was a “prison of­fi­cers-on­ly af­fair” held in a se­clud­ed, lim­it­ed ac­cess, high-se­cu­ri­ty zone. Speak­ing in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Hinds ex­plained the area had un­der­gone a thor­ough se­cu­ri­ty sweep and the firearms were in the con­trol of the of­fi­cers to whom they were law­ful­ly is­sued.

The min­is­ter gave the in­for­ma­tion as he re­spond­ed to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark. Mark had not­ed re­ports that two firearms be­long­ing to the Prison Ser­vice were seen hang­ing from a tree dur­ing a so­cial gath­er­ing at Cha­cachacare. He’d asked about the es­tab­lished pro­to­cols and op­er­at­ing stan­dards em­ployed in such cir­cum­stances.

Hinds replied, “The use of firearms by prison of­fi­cers is guid­ed by the Firearms Act Chap. 16:01 as amend­ed; and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice’s Firearms Pol­i­cy, as out­lined by Gen­er­al Or­der No 91 of 2016. This pol­i­cy sets out the Prison Ser­vice’s Firearm User’s Pro­to­cols which gov­erns, in­ter alia, pro­ce­dures for stor­age of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion, is­sued to prison of­fi­cers while at work, at res­i­dence, dur­ing trav­el and when car­ry­ing in pub­lic.

“With re­spect to the par­tic­u­lar ‘so­cial gath­er­ing’ as sug­gest­ed by the sen­a­tor, it should be not­ed that based on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived from the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, the event was an in­ter­nal, pre-planned, prison of­fi­cers-on­ly af­fair, that was held in a se­clud­ed, lim­it­ed ac­cess, high-se­cu­ri­ty zone, that had un­der­gone a thor­ough se­cu­ri­ty sweep, pri­or to the ar­rival of prison of­fi­cers.”

Mark asked why the firearms were seen hang­ing from a tree dur­ing this so­cial gath­er­ing and if the “se­cu­ri­ty sweep” was done, why the video went vi­ral.

Hinds said, “What so­ci­ety saw was an el­e­ment of a video some­one might have shared, but at all times those firearms were in the con­trol of the of­fi­cers to whom they were law­ful­ly is­sued, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en that pos­ses­sion can be ac­tu­al and/or con­struc­tive, but con­trolled nonethe­less.”

Mark said that giv­en the “clear breach­es which oc­curred” and Hinds’ “con­fes­sion”, if an in­de­pen­dent probe would be launched. Hinds, ac­cus­ing Mark of “de­scend­ing in­to ba­nal­i­ty,” added, “I’ve giv­en a clear an­swer and his sug­ges­tion is there­fore as in­valid as the thoughts that dri­ve them.”

Mean­while, Mark al­so ques­tioned if Gov­ern­ment had ap­proved or en­dorsed of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain-based In­ter-Agency Task Force ne­go­ti­at­ing “peace deals” be­tween ri­val gangs.

Hinds said, “Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion re­ceived from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has nev­er en­gaged in any such di­a­logue.

“It fol­lows, there­fore, that the TTPS has nev­er in­formed the Gov­ern­ment that any such di­a­logue was un­der­tak­en by the TTPS.

“It would al­so fol­low, that the Gov­ern­ment could not en­dorse any such ac­tion. In ad­di­tion, the Gov­ern­ment has nev­er sug­gest­ed to the TTPS, that this should be a con­sid­ered ap­proach, as a gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.”

Hinds said Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy was clear and high­ly pub­li­cised and the Gov­ern­ment did not have to “ex­tri­cate it­self” from any ac­tion as the TTPS had re­spond­ed pub­licly when the al­le­ga­tion was made and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice al­so made it clear the TTPS did not en­dorse any such ac­tion.

He said he didn’t know if the TTPS was in­volved in any in­ves­ti­ga­tion on that or an­oth­er mat­ter, “Maybe a cer­tain UNC deputy leader can as­sist us in that re­gard.”

Plans to dis­man­tle gangs

Min­is­ter Hinds said the Gov­ern­ment ex­pects the TTPS to con­tin­ue to de­vel­op strate­gies in re­spond­ing to the crime prob­lem; and oth­er crime man­age­ment is­sues with­in the TTPS.

“The TTPS has pro­duced sev­er­al strate­gic plans over the years, the lat­est be­ing the Strate­gic Plan 2022-2024. This guides the TTPS in treat­ing with ex­ist­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive and op­er­a­tional is­sues.

“In ad­di­tion, the 2023 Vi­o­lent Crime Re­duc­tion Plan (VCRP), was de­signed in di­rect re­sponse to ris­ing lev­els of il­le­gal firearms, as well as trou­bling lev­els of gang ac­tiv­i­ty. The pur­pose of the plan is to re­duce the fear of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty, through an im­proved re­la­tion­ship be­tween the TTPS and com­mu­ni­ties. As it per­tains to gangs, one of the pri­ma­ry aims of the VCRP, is to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal gangs, en­hance in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ties, in­crease de­tec­tion and to suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute vi­o­lent of­fend­ers.”

Hinds said TTPS’ plan to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal gangs, which was con­sis­tent with the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy, in­cludes the fol­low­ing:

• Con­duct­ing ex­ten­sive da­ta min­ing on gangs, in ac­cor­dance with the law.

• Se­lect­ing the most vi­o­lent gang mem­bers from the gang data­base in each po­lice di­vi­sion; and in­ten­sive­ly tar­get them.

• Tar­get­ing the most pro­lif­ic of­fend­ers, gang mem­bers, drug deal­ers and oth­er no­to­ri­ous per­sons for spe­cif­ic ac­tion, in­clud­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of out­stand­ing war­rants.

• Mak­ing ef­fec­tive use of the An­ti-Gang Act, In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act (IO­CA) and oth­er rel­e­vant laws, to dis­rupt ac­tiv­i­ties of gangs and pros­e­cute gang mem­bers.

• As­sign­ing Field In­tel­li­gence Of­fi­cers in each po­lice di­vi­sion, to col­lect and process in­tel­li­gence on crim­i­nal gangs.

• Op­er­a­tional­is­ing Gang In­tel­li­gence Units in each po­lice di­vi­sion; and sub­stan­tial­ly in­creas­ing the num­ber of of­fi­cers ded­i­cat­ed to the dis­man­tling of gangs.

• Ap­ply­ing pre­ci­sion-dri­ven en­force­ment and pre­ven­tion strate­gies to those com­mu­ni­ties with per­sis­tent vi­o­lent crime hot spots.

• Con­trol­ling move­ments on our road­ways and pub­lic spaces.