Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) head, Snr Supt Roger Alexan­der, says while the po­lice had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to speak with peo­ple of all back­grounds, their du­ty is not to fa­cil­i­tate any truce be­tween war­ring gangs.

He made the com­ment in re­sponse to a me­dia re­port that po­lice were in the process of bro­ker­ing a truce be­tween the Sixx and Sev­en gangs in east Port-of-Spain.

The re­port not­ed that the peace talks came in the af­ter­math of a se­ries of mur­ders and shoot­ings in and around the cap­i­tal city.
Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, these dis­cus­sions in­volved the IATF.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Alexan­der dis­missed the re­port, not­ing that the po­lice did not pro­vide in­cen­tives for crim­i­nals to stop com­mit­ting crimes.

“To say that we would have ne­go­ti­at­ed or fa­cil­i­tat­ed some truce talks, I think that is some­one with a high imag­i­na­tion,” Alexan­der said.

“No po­lice of­fi­cer will be will­ing to do that be­cause it is not what we do. No Com­mis­sion­er, not the one I know. Not Mrs Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, not the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Mr (Curt) Si­mon, would sup­port that be­hav­iour.”

Alexan­der added that the role of the po­lice was to dis­man­tle gangs and dis­rupt their ac­tiv­i­ties.
He said it was more plau­si­ble for po­lice of­fi­cers to in­ter­view sus­pect­ed gang mem­bers to un­der­stand what led to the uptick in vi­o­lence, but stressed that this would not count as a “ne­go­ti­a­tion”.

“Noth­ing is wrong if peo­ple call on po­lice of­fi­cers to have a con­ver­sa­tion with them. When you in­ter­view these sources, they will have things to say. We will talk to any­body that we be­lieve in­for­ma­tion can come from to as­sist in mat­ters of con­cern,” he added.

The IATF is an op­er­a­tional unit of the po­lice that works close­ly with the reg­i­ment for pa­trols and oth­er an­ti-crime ex­er­cis­es. They cov­er sev­er­al ar­eas in east Port-of-Spain, in­clud­ing Sea Lots, the Beetham and Laven­tille.
On Sun­day, the head of the IATF as­sured calm would re­turn to the cap­i­tal city de­spite the wave of gang vi­o­lence now pre­vail­ing.