Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher is warn­ing against the mis­use of gel blaster toy guns and im­i­ta­tion firearms.

"While gel blasters may be mar­ket­ed as toys, the mod­els that close­ly re­sem­ble re­al firearms are pro­hib­it­ed,” CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher said in a state­ment.

“The in­dis­crim­i­nate use of such de­vices, es­pe­cial­ly in pub­lic spaces or to­wards un­sus­pect­ing in­di­vid­u­als, is dan­ger­ous and pos­es a threat to pub­lic safe­ty,” she de­clared.

The top cop re­mind­ed the pub­lic that us­ing any item, re­al or im­i­ta­tion, to threat­en, in­tim­i­date, or harm oth­ers is a crim­i­nal of­fence un­der the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"If suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence ex­ists prov­ing that in­di­vid­u­als are en­gaged in such acts, they may face se­vere le­gal reper­cus­sions, in­clud­ing crim­i­nal charges," she warned.

CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher said po­lice of­fi­cers have been alert­ed to the is­sue and are re­quired to act de­ci­sive­ly. She urged the pub­lic to ex­er­cise re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and re­straint when han­dling items that mim­ic the ap­pear­ance of a weapon.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er al­so called on par­ents and guardians to su­per­vise mi­nors and ed­u­cate them on the risks of mis­us­ing these de­vices.

"While fun and play are im­por­tant as­pects of child­hood, they must al­ways be ac­com­pa­nied by a sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty," she said.