Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les and Rhon­dor Dowlat

Po­lice of­fi­cers from Trinidad have been sent to To­ba­go to pro­vide re­in­force­ments to the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion to in­crease safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty on the is­land dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son and be­yond.

Res­i­dents and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty were left hor­ri­fied by the num­ber of mur­ders record­ed in To­ba­go in un­der 24 hours last week, push­ing the is­land’s toll to 13 so far for 2023.

On Tues­day a Sig­nal Hill woman was found dead in a drain in Mt Irvine. Less than 24 hours lat­er, po­lice re­spond­ed to a dou­ble mur­der in Crown Point. By Fri­day, two men were in­jured in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing.

Af­ter an al­leged mem­ber of a To­ba­go Sixx Gang was shot and killed at the Crown Point es­tab­lish­ment, a re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Head of Homi­cide Snr Supt Rishi Singh said po­lice were prepar­ing for pos­si­ble reprisals.

Guardian Me­dia was told that whilst the num­ber of of­fi­cers will not be dis­closed be­cause of the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the op­er­a­tion, mem­bers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force and Guard and Emer­gency Branch from Trinidad are part of the op­er­a­tions cur­rent­ly in To­ba­go.

Of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a mo­bile/foot pa­trol in the down­town Scar­bor­ough area yes­ter­day where sev­er­al ve­hi­cles and peo­ple were stopped and searched how­ev­er, noth­ing il­le­gal was found.

These ex­er­cis­es will con­tin­ue across the is­land.

The ex­er­cise was spear­head­ed by ACPs Col­lis Hazel, Kelvern Thomp­son, co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr Supts Roger Alexan­der, Earl El­lie, Michael Jack­man, Supts Dave Spence, Rod­cliffe Kirk, su­per­vised by ASP Rame­sar and in­clud­ed In­sp Forbes, Cpls Wal­lace, To­bias and PCs Balka­ran, Smith, King, De Coteau, Bab­wah and Bas­so.

Busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty hor­ri­fied, says CoP must vis­it the is­land in Jan­u­ary

Mean­while, To­ba­go’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is still call­ing for an ur­gent meet­ing with Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher as the is­land’s mur­der rate reached a record high last week.

Chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion Cur­tis Williams told Guardian Me­dia the sit­u­a­tion is fright­en­ing and that crime has cost To­ba­go mil­lions in loss­es in 2023.

Williams said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was left hor­ri­fied by the num­ber of mur­ders record­ed in To­ba­go in un­der 24 hours push­ing the is­land’s toll to 13 for 2023.

Williams said, “I need to see the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice in Jan­u­ary. She needs to be in To­ba­go in Jan­u­ary be­cause we have to set the pace for this is­land and we need the com­mis­sion­er to be on board with it. She nev­er vis­it­ed To­ba­go on an of­fi­cial ba­sis to see the stake­hold­ers and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, so we are plead­ing with the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, yuh need to be in To­ba­go in Jan­u­ary. Let’s start the year on a good foot.”

Williams said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was un­com­fort­able with the crim­i­nal el­e­ments and ac­tiv­i­ties. This, he said, has been creep­ing in­to To­ba­go for some time.

“We want the com­mis­sion­er, we want the head. We don’t want the ACP. We want to have mean­ing­ful di­a­logue, not promis­es. She can share some of her ob­jects and pro­pos­als that she may have for the is­land be­cause deal­ing with crime in To­ba­go as well as in Trinidad is two dif­fer­ent things. To­ba­go is unique and we need to set a prop­er plan.”

The cham­ber will write to the com­mis­sion­er on Jan­u­ary 1, ask­ing for the meet­ing.

“We (the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty) have been hit by crime. I my­self have been a vic­tim of it in the Crown Point area suf­fer­ing thou­sands of dol­lars in loss­es and just the trau­ma my em­ploy­ees faced, it amounts up to hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. That is why we need the com­mis­sion­er here.

“We just need her for one day to sit and dis­cuss things of per­ti­nent im­por­tance to the se­cu­ri­ty of the is­land of To­ba­go.”

Williams said he un­der­stands the po­lice alone can­not re­duce crime, which is why his cham­ber is of­fer­ing all the sup­port the To­ba­go po­lice needs to ef­fec­tive­ly re­duce the crime rate.

Calls and texts to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher went unan­swered.

Man charged with mur­der of Mt Irvine woman

A Pa­tience Hill man is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trate charged with the mur­der of 39-year-old Jan­nelle Sowe-Thomas.

Po­lice charged the man on Fri­day af­ter­noon fol­low­ing ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. He is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore the court on Wednes­day morn­ing.

Sowe-Thomas would have cel­e­brat­ed her 40th birth­day on that day with close friends and fam­i­ly, but in­stead, in­ves­ti­ga­tors spent the day clos­ing the case to have a sus­pect charged with her death.

Po­lice sus­pect a do­mes­tic dis­pute may have been the mo­tive be­hind the mur­der. Sowe-Thomas of Sig­nal Hill was doused with gaso­line and set on fire in Mt Irvine on De­cem­ber 19.

The man re­port­ed­ly walked in­to the Shir­van Po­lice Sta­tion and con­fessed be­fore tak­ing of­fi­cers to Gle­nea­gles Dri­ve, where he al­leged­ly left Sowe-Thomas’s body in a drain.

Sowe-Thomas was To­ba­go’s 11th mur­der vic­tim for 2023. In a brief con­ver­sa­tion, Sowe-Thomas’ moth­er, Moureen, told Guardian Me­dia she has been hav­ing a hard time cop­ing with her daugh­ter’s death. She is not sure how to feel about the news that a man known to the fam­i­ly has been charged with her mur­der. How­ev­er, she said it was jus­tice for the fam­i­ly.

The fam­i­ly will be present at the Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trates’ Court on Wednes­day for the hear­ing.

She said cel­e­brat­ing her daugh­ter’s birth­day with­out her was dev­as­tat­ing.

“I can­not talk about it right now. I don’t even know what to say. Every time I talk about it my head gets hot. I don’t know. Her sis­ters would like to go to the court, but I would not be able to go. It’s hard.”

Two men shot in Carn­bee

Mean­while, two men were ward­ed at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Fri­day night af­ter gun­men shot at them in Carn­bee #1.

CCTV footage showed the men were sit­ting in a dark area along the pave­ment just af­ter 11 pm when a sil­ver car pulled along­side them. Two armed men jumped out and shot at them sev­er­al times.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that Ajanie Al­leyne and Kishawn Mc­Don­ald were shot in the but­tocks, leg, and pe­nis.

The men es­caped on foot be­fore the gun­men re­turned to the car and sped off.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the car al­leged­ly in­volved in the shoot­ing was found aban­doned in Sig­nal Hill Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.