Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

As Par­lia­ment meets to de­bate the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SOE), chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion is call­ing for its con­tin­u­a­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Cur­tis Williams said there are on­go­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns and the need to tack­le deep­er is­sues in crime.

Williams said po­lice may need more time to con­clude their in­ves­ti­ga­tions and cor­ner high-lev­el crim­i­nals and dis­man­tle or­ga­nized gang groups.

“I think the law en­force­ment should be giv­en the ad­di­tion­al time to do what they need to do, wrap up. What they need to wrap up. My biggest con­cern is, af­ter the SOE, what hap­pens af­ter that? Crime go­ing to go back spik­ing again are things go­ing to be lev­el of that’s, that’s my biggest con­cern.”

De­spite the SOE’s im­ple­men­ta­tion, Williams point­ed to per­sis­tent vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing To­ba­go’s first record­ed mur­der for the year—a child. He de­scribed the case as alarm­ing and hopes the SoE can deal with gangs re­cruit­ing mi­nors.

“In the space in To­ba­go, we had our first mur­der, which was a child, and we were much con­cerned about what’s hap­pen­ing there with the kids. I mean, it was a mi­nor, and I mean, I did bring it to the at­ten­tion of the au­thor­i­ties, and they in­di­cat­ed to me and some of the gangs, I re­cruit­ed young peo­ple as young as 12 years of age.”

He al­so raised fears about what might hap­pen if the SoE ends pre­ma­ture­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the coun­try’s ex­ist­ing chal­lenges with vi­o­lent crime.