An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has re­in­forced its promise to pro­tect and serve all cit­i­zens across T&T, re­gard­less of where they re­side.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin yes­ter­day as­sured, “We will con­tin­ue to per­form our du­ties with­in the law, pro­fes­sion­al­ly, pro­por­tion­ate­ly and re­spon­si­bly.”

Field­ing ques­tions dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Mar­tin ad­dressed safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns fol­low­ing the end of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) last week.

The third SoE, which ran from March 3 to Sep­tem­ber 17, saw thou­sands of of­fi­cers par­tic­i­pate in sus­tained op­er­a­tions dur­ing the 199-day pe­ri­od.

Mar­tin said the end of the SoE did not mean a re­turn to what ex­ist­ed be­fore.
Stress­ing that the SoE’s con­clu­sion did not mean a re­duc­tion in po­lice vig­i­lance, vis­i­bil­i­ty or op­er­a­tional ac­tiv­i­ty, she said there had been a seam­less tran­si­tion from the SoE in­to a strength­ened post-SoE polic­ing pos­ture.

Mar­tin en­dorsed the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of three mi­cro po­lice units at Tarou­ba, Grand Bazaar and Tacarigua, which, she said, had at­tract­ed pos­i­tive feed­back from the pub­lic thus far.

For­mal­ly opened on the same day the SoE end­ed, of­fi­cers at the three posts have so far con­duct­ed a com­bined 247 pa­trols, sup­port­ed by 14 drone sur­veil­lance pa­trols, Mar­tin said.

Re­fer­ring to the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah in Tacarigua, she said: “Our of­fi­cers are al­so in­ter­act­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty, build­ing that pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence with the com­mu­ni­ty.

“In terms of crime pre­ven­tion, we al­so have those of­fi­cers not on­ly on mo­bile but foot pa­trol in Grand Bazaar. Al­so at Tarou­ba, we have pa­trols, be­sides mo­bile and the drone, we al­so have foot pa­trols as well.”

She added, “I think based on the feed­back thus far, the pub­lic feels much safer, and we are en­cour­ag­ing them, if you see some­thing, say some­thing, which can al­so as­sist the po­lice in treat­ing with the laws of T&T.”

Mar­tin said the TTPS would soon com­mis­sion two mi­cro po­lice units in To­ba­go, but was un­able to say if and when any fur­ther units would be es­tab­lished in Trinidad.

She said the ef­fec­tive­ness of the mi­cro units should not be mea­sured by ar­rests alone.

“Every pa­trol rep­re­sents po­lice pres­ence, vis­i­bil­i­ty and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­ter crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, gath­er in­tel­li­gence, en­gage our com­mu­ni­ties and re­spond when re­quired. Peo­ple must not on­ly be safer; they should feel safer.”

Mean­while, de­fend­ing the SoE, which re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of 6,027 peo­ple and the de­ten­tion of 574, of whom 260 were sub­se­quent­ly charged, head of the TTPS Le­gal Unit ASP Ram­dath Phillip said, “The PDO process was not a process that the po­lice were al­lowed to just take up per­sons and put them on a PDO.”

He added, “There were checks and bal­ances for the is­suance of a PDO to be signed by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, and it was based on in­tel­li­gence and in­for­ma­tion that was forth­com­ing to the po­lice ser­vice, and the test was, should these peo­ple be left on the out­side in the free world?”

He jus­ti­fied the process, say­ing, “The in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ed that crime would have oc­curred and it is on that ba­sis, or was one of the bases by which a PDO was ap­plied for. We are in no way falling short of those in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

Dur­ing the 199-day SoE, the TTPS con­duct­ed:

13,533 op­er­a­tions

Ex­e­cut­ed 2,880 war­rants

Ar­rest­ed 6,027 peo­ple

Charged 1,423 peo­ple

Re­cov­ered 326 firearms and 6,811 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion

Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs):

801 PDOs were rec­om­mend­ed

702 were ap­proved

574 were ex­e­cut­ed, of which 260 de­tainees were sub­se­quent­ly charged

At the con­clu­sion of the SoE, 409 peo­ple were re­leased while 165 re­mained in­car­cer­at­ed, in­clud­ing per­sons for whom bail had not been grant­ed or ac­cessed