Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art Young has out­lined the specifics of a State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­clared to ad­dress es­ca­lat­ing crim­i­nal vi­o­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in Port-of-Spain, Young em­pha­sised that the mea­sures aim to tar­get vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­volv­ing il­le­gal firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and ex­plo­sives, which es­ca­lat­ed with a spate of killings over the week­end, while al­so en­sur­ing that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens' rights are min­i­mal­ly im­pact­ed.

“There will be no cur­few or re­stric­tions on pub­lic meet­ings or march­es at this stage,” Young stat­ed dur­ing a te me­dia con­fer­ence.

“The fo­cus is on those en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Un­der the emer­gency reg­u­la­tions, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will re­ceive en­hanced pow­ers, in­clud­ing the au­thor­i­ty to search premis­es and in­di­vid­u­als with­out war­rants if there is rea­son­able sus­pi­cion of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. In­di­vid­u­als found in pos­ses­sion of il­le­gal firearms or in the com­pa­ny of those car­ry­ing such items can al­so face de­ten­tion.

De­ten­tion pow­ers ex­plained

The reg­u­la­tions al­low for the de­ten­tion of in­di­vid­u­als for up to 48 hours with­out charge. Be­yond that pe­ri­od, a mag­is­trate or se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer may au­tho­rise fur­ther de­ten­tion for up to sev­en days while ev­i­dence is gath­ered. These pro­vi­sions aim to fa­cil­i­tate thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the reg­u­la­tions sus­pend bail for in­di­vid­u­als de­tained un­der the SoE. Po­lice of­fi­cers will al­so be em­pow­ered to stop, search, and de­tain in­di­vid­u­als, ve­hi­cles, and ves­sels with­out war­rants in pub­lic or pri­vate spaces.

De­fence Force on high alert

Young con­firmed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) will be de­ployed in a sup­port role to the po­lice. Mem­bers of the TTDF, un­der the in­struc­tions of the Chief of De­fence Staff, will have pow­ers equiv­a­lent to those of po­lice of­fi­cers while act­ing un­der the SoE reg­u­la­tions.

Tri­bunal and over­sight

A tri­bunal will be es­tab­lished to han­dle mat­ters aris­ing from the SoE. Young has been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Act­ing Chief Jus­tice Jus­tice of Ap­peal Bar­row to en­sure the le­gal frame­work is in place.

No con­nec­tion to re­cent mil­i­tary call-out

Young dis­missed claims that the SoE is linked to the re­cent mo­bil­i­sa­tion of De­fence Force re­serves by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo. He clar­i­fied that such mo­bil­i­sa­tions are rou­tine dur­ing the Christ­mas and Car­ni­val pe­ri­ods to bol­ster na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts.

The SoE, Young ex­plained, was ne­ces­si­tat­ed by in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing threats of re­tal­i­a­tion from crim­i­nal el­e­ments. These threats in­volve the con­tin­ued use of il­le­gal firearms in a man­ner that pos­es height­ened risks to pub­lic safe­ty, he said.

“This is a tar­get­ed re­sponse to brazen crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and the es­ca­lat­ing use of il­le­gal weapons that en­dan­ger the lives of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens,” he stat­ed.

The Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al as­sured the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing or­der and ad­dress­ing the root caus­es of crime. The reg­u­la­tions are ex­pect­ed to be pub­lished short­ly, out­lin­ing the scope and ap­pli­ca­tion of these emer­gency pow­ers.