Kevon Felmine and

An­na-lisa Paul

As the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ex­pired and de­tainees held un­der Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) were re­leased yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro warned that those re­turn­ing to their com­mu­ni­ties would be en­ter­ing a “dif­fer­ent polic­ing en­vi­ron­ment.”

That en­vi­ron­ment took shape yes­ter­day as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) op­er­a­tionalised three mi­cro po­lice units, with sol­diers and per­son­nel from sev­er­al polic­ing arms op­er­at­ing out of the Tarou­ba In­ter­change in San Fer­nan­do, Grand Bazaar in Val­sayn and the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah in Tacarigua.

The three units are among 30 po­lice posts an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Au­gust and form part of the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to in­crease the se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties and help res­i­dents re­gain the use of pub­lic spaces.

Speak­ing at the open­ing of the Tarou­ba post, Gue­var­ro said the units rep­re­sent­ed the next stage of the TTPS’s an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive, with their de­ploy­ment guid­ed by crime da­ta rather than sim­ply plac­ing posts across the coun­try.

“We have de­cid­ed to go to the next stage in our an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive, and that is the open­ing of the mi­cro po­lice units,” he said.

“When we look at polic­ing in this era, this day and age, we analyse the en­vi­ron­ment, and we put tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions in place, and this is one of those tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions.”

Gue­var­ro con­firmed 30 units were avail­able thus far, but re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tion that they would sim­ply be placed “all over the place”.

He said, “No, that is not true. We’ll be us­ing, again as I say, analysed da­ta to di­rect where these units and where re­sources will be placed.”

At Tarou­ba, Gue­var­ro said the con­cept goes be­yond a con­ven­tion­al po­lice post. He said tran­sit po­lice, traf­fic war­dens, task forces, op­er­a­tional units, CID and Spe­cial Branch could op­er­ate from the mi­cro units, along­side nor­mal pa­trol du­ties, traf­fic en­force­ment and op­er­a­tional sup­port.

The units are al­so be­ing in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the TTPS’s ac­tive di­rect­ed grid pa­trol, which Gue­var­ro said is linked to the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) and all op­er­a­tional com­mand cen­tres.

“When some­thing hap­pens, we can block off all the ar­ter­ies from the south and treat with it ac­cord­ing­ly.”

The pres­ence of T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) per­son­nel at all three lo­ca­tions al­so re­flect­ed the joint se­cu­ri­ty ap­proach with which the mi­cro units were ini­tial­ly in­tro­duced.

Gue­var­ro said he would not re­veal every­thing about the de­ploy­ment of the re­main­ing units as the po­lice ser­vice does not want crim­i­nals ad­just­ing their ac­tiv­i­ties based on ad­vance knowl­edge of po­lice tac­tics.

Even as he spoke with re­porters in Tarou­ba, a buzzing sound over­head in­di­cat­ed an ad­di­tion­al lay­er of the new polic­ing strat­e­gy, which the Com­mis­sion­er said would al­so ex­tend in­to the air.

“So the drone pa­trol and drone re­sponse is now go­ing to be in­cul­cat­ed in­to our crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive.”

He said drones could op­er­ate at heights where they could be­come dif­fi­cult to see.

The op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of these posts comes as the Gov­ern­ment’s wider re­sponse to crime moves in­to a new phase fol­low­ing the SoE, dur­ing which TTPS and TTDF per­son­nel will be con­duct­ing in­ten­si­fied op­er­a­tions.

Pressed to say how ef­fec­tive he con­sid­ered the SoE, Gue­var­ro said “Very ef­fec­tive. The num­bers speak for them­selves.”

And with for­mer PDO de­tainees re­turn­ing to the streets, Gue­var­ro said the polic­ing en­vi­ron­ment they would now en­counter would be dif­fer­ent.

Asked about re­ports that re­leased de­tainees could sue the State, Gue­var­ro said they had a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to do so.

“Leg­is­la­tion pro­vides for that, and they are free to do it. I’m not sure how suc­cess­ful that would be, but they are free to try.”

Re­gard­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment that Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) was re­turn­ing to Par­lia­ment with amend­ments, Gue­var­ro said any as­sis­tance from the leg­isla­tive arm would be wel­comed.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, who ac­com­pa­nied Gue­var­ro at the open­ing of the Tarou­ba post, said the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of that unit formed part of a wider trans­for­ma­tion of polic­ing, in­volv­ing joint ef­forts be­tween the TTPS, the TTDF and oth­er units.

He ex­plained the process would con­tin­ue, re­spond­ing to re­peat­ed ques­tions from the pub­lic about when changes to polic­ing would take place.

He al­so thanked the CoP and the Chief of De­fence Staff (CDS) for their work dur­ing the SoE.

Alexan­der said the pub­lic could not be left out of the process, ar­gu­ing that cit­i­zens al­so had a role to play in tack­ling crime.

“If we join to­geth­er, it’s eas­i­er to man­age crime, and that’s what we’re look­ing for,” he stat­ed.

Ad­dress­ing the teams of po­lice and sol­diers at the Grand Bazaar po­lice post ahead of their de­ploy­ment yes­ter­day, Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin re­mind­ed them of their man­date as part of Op­er­a­tion Watch Tow­er 2026.

“We are here for pre­ven­tion, part­ner­ship and pur­pose­ful polic­ing,” she said.

Mar­tin re­mind­ed the law­men it was not on­ly about vis­i­bil­i­ty but im­pact as well, ad­vis­ing them that prop­er and time­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tions were nec­es­sary es­pe­cial­ly where it re­quired re­quests for field sup­port.