Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day hailed the 19-hour cur­few—which be­gan at 10 am Mon­day and end­ed this morn­ing at 5 am - as a suc­cess.

As promised by the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, his charges were out in full force for the In­di­an Ar­rival Day hol­i­day yes­ter­day as the cur­few took ef­fect.

Be­fore re­stric­tions kicked in, how­ev­er, there were long lines at some gas sta­tions as fran­tic mo­torists wait­ed to have their gas tanks filled.

And af­ter 10 am the al­ready qui­et streets of Port-of-Spain were trans­formed in­to a ghost town as there were even few­er home­less peo­ple milling about.

How­ev­er, ac­cess­ing trans­porta­tion be­fore the cur­few took ef­fect was dif­fi­cult for those ei­ther on their way to work or home.

A nurse as­signed to the St Ann’s Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal who was at the Croisee, San Juan around 9.30 am told Guardian Me­dia that there were no taxis at the Port-of-Spain stand.

She even­tu­al­ly got a lift from a Guardian pho­tog­ra­ph­er to Port-of-Spain and then got an­oth­er drop from po­lice who were on pa­trol to her work­place.

Sev­er­al peo­ple were al­so seen scram­bling in­to maxi taxis just be­fore 10 am yes­ter­day.

But oth­ers were not that lucky.

They were ren­dered strand­ed at emp­ty taxi stands.

Grif­fith said the po­lice recog­nised there will be some es­sen­tial work­ers go­ing to or re­turn­ing from shift du­ty with­out cur­few per­mits.

“In those cir­cum­stances, the em­ploy­ee sim­ply needs to pro­duce the com­pa­ny iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card and ex­plain to the of­fi­cer where he or she is go­ing to or com­ing from,” he said.

Such work­ers in­clude (though are not nec­es­sar­i­ly lim­it­ed to) the me­dia, pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, health­care work­ers, sea and air­port work­ers, and en­er­gy sec­tor work­ers.

How­ev­er, some mem­bers of Guardian Me­dia Ltd who were on their way to work dur­ing the cur­few yes­ter­day were stopped by po­lice of­fi­cers who de­mand­ed they pro­duce a cur­few pass, de­spite the Com­mis­sion­er mak­ing it clear that they can sim­ply pro­duce a com­pa­ny iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card or com­pa­ny let­ter.

When con­tact­ed Grif­fith said such hic­cups will be swift­ly ad­dressed.

He al­so said the TTPS ful­ly-manned po­lice op­er­a­tions com­mand cen­tre to deal with cur­few re­lat­ed mat­ters re­ceived a to­tal of 5,000 calls from peo­ple re­quir­ing in­for­ma­tion about be­ing out­side dur­ing the cur­few pe­ri­od.

Peo­ple trans­port­ing es­sen­tial work­ers were among those in the top cat­e­gories who called the po­lice cur­few hot­line.

In giv­ing a break­down of the sta­tis­tics, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said,” The TTPS op­er­a­tion com­mand cen­tre hot­line calls re­ceived in last 18 hours, over 275 calls an hour. Al­most five calls a minute for 18 hours.”

He said po­lice re­ceived around 1,300 calls from peo­ple trans­port­ing es­sen­tial peo­ple and 1,250 from es­sen­tial work­ers be­tween 9 pm on May 30 to 3 pm on May 31, 2021.

He said be­tween that pe­ri­od “an av­er­age of 5,000 calls were re­ceived.”

There were around 850 calls from health care work­ers both from pub­lic and pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions, 300 from se­cu­ri­ty firms and from se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, 200 calls re­ceived from med­ical emer­gen­cies, 150 from farm­ers, 100 calls from peo­ple hav­ing to trav­el abroad, and 50 from ho­tel work­ers.

Com­mis­sion­er prais­es

‘ma­tu­ri­ty’ of cit­i­zens

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith al­so said yes­ter­day’s op­er­a­tion went smooth­ly, ex­cept for a few re­ports re­ceived by the cen­tre that peo­ple go­ing to and from their es­sen­tial jobs, were turned back by cer­tain po­lice of­fi­cers er­ro­neous­ly.

Grif­fith ad­vised es­sen­tial work­ers that if they do en­counter this prob­lem, to call the cen­tre and the po­lice of­fi­cers on the ground will be du­ly in­formed.

How­ev­er, he said over­all the cur­few to curb the spread of COVID-19 in this coun­try, was a suc­cess.

“The vir­tu­al ghost town seen through­out the coun­try dur­ing the day­time pe­ri­od of the cur­few to­day (yes­ter­day), along with the very few in­stances of per­sons be­ing con­front­ed for break­ing this law, with very few com­plaints, showed the suc­cess of the cur­few, as the ob­jec­tive is not to ar­rest any­one but to en­sure that all cit­i­zens are briefed in un­der­stand­ing what should and should not be done.”

He added, “I wish to thank all TTPS of­fi­cers for con­tin­u­ing to per­form above and be­yond the call of du­ty dur­ing this pe­ri­od, as well as the cit­i­zens of this coun­try, for show­ing the ma­tu­ri­ty and un­der­stand­ing need­ed to ad­here to what is re­quired.”

Ar­rests still made

But de­spite con­tin­ued warn­ings from the po­lice there were those still bent on break­ing the law.

Po­lice said 26 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed at a res­i­dence in Re­al Spring, Val­sayn Sun­day for breach of the Pub­lic Health reg­u­la­tions.

The group, which in­clud­ed six Venezue­lans, were al­leged­ly par­ty­ing when they were held.

A 38-year-old man at the gath­er­ing was al­so ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of 0.4 grammes of co­caine.

The group of men and women rang­ing in age from 20 to 40 are ex­pect­ed to be for­mal­ly charged to­day.

There were al­so two vi­ral videos of young men from the Port-of-Spain area play­ing foot­ball along the Beetham High­way and the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, clear­ly in breach of the cur­few and health reg­u­la­tions, since they were not wear­ing masks.

Any­one need­ing in­for­ma­tion dur­ing the next ex­tend­ed cur­few on Thurs­day can call the hot­line num­bers - 480-2000, 612-3876, 684-5730, 684-5076, 684-5035, and 684-5233.