SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Less than a week af­ter a group of men were seen fire­bomb­ing a house at Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, a 24-year-old man was ar­rest­ed and is ex­pect­ed to be charged in re­la­tion to the in­ci­dent.

Last Wednes­day morn­ing, se­cu­ri­ty cam­era footage cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia which showed a group of 12 men with Molo­tov cock­tails run­ning to­wards the house. Po­lice said be­longed to a rel­a­tive of a man—Reynold Vic­tor—who was gunned down in San Juan last Tues­day.

The footage al­so showed the men throw­ing Molo­tov cock­tails at the house, set­ting it on fire.

Last Thurs­day, po­lice from the North East­ern Di­vi­sion led a se­ries of ex­er­cis­es ar­rest­ing 11 peo­ple.

Po­lice sources said the re­main­ing ten peo­ple were re­leased pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries.

A re­lease from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice yes­ter­day stat­ed that a man, who is al­so from Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, was ex­pect­ed to be charged with two counts of set­ting fire to a dwelling house with a per­son there­in.

The charges were ex­pect­ed to be laid af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­ceived ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions yes­ter­day.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp, Snr Supt Mervyn Ed­wards of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion said yes­ter­day that while the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was on­go­ing, of­fi­cers in the di­vi­sion treat­ed the in­ci­dent with the ut­most pri­or­i­ty.

He al­so as­sured Mor­vant res­i­dents that the po­lice would con­tin­ue to main­tain a vis­i­ble pres­ence through­out the North East­ern Di­vi­sion.

“Un­der my com­mand, I took prompt and ef­fec­tive ac­tion. Painstak­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions by of­fi­cers of the Mor­vant CID un­der the su­per­vi­sion of ASP Cal­len­dar led to the ar­rest of over 17 per­sons,” he said.

“Sev­er­al state­ments were record­ed, per­sons were in­ter­viewed and in­ves­ti­ga­tions led us to con­sul­ta­tions with mem­bers of the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and I am pleased to re­port to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that one per­son will be charged for two counts of set­ting a dwelling house on fire with per­sons there­in, this al­most amounts to at­tempt­ed mur­der,” Ed­wards added.

The se­nior of­fi­cer again as­sured Mor­vant res­i­dents and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that po­lice of­fi­cers will not al­low crim­i­nals to roam free.

“I want to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­sure mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, Mor­vant and en­vi­rons and the wider na­tion that we, the TTPS, will con­tin­ue to re­lent­less­ly pur­sue crim­i­nals and bring them be­fore the courts of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ed­wards said.

An­oth­er of­fi­cer, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia but did not want his name pub­lished, said while there were ru­mours of pos­si­ble re­tal­i­a­tion, of­fi­cers in the dis­trict con­tin­ued to main­tain pres­sure on crim­i­nals through the ac­tive di­rect­ed pa­trol ini­tia­tive with sup­port from the reg­i­ment.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tions were su­per­vised by ASP Cal­len­dar, In­sp Ram­s­ingh, Sgt Mitchell and Cpl Dhill with sup­port from of­fi­cers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, the In­ter-Agency Task Force, the Tran­sit Po­lice, the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch and the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force.