An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The ex­ec­u­tive of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is grate­ful and hap­py with the out­come of the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed State of Emer­gency (SoE).

De­clar­ing they were “pleased” dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin said the SoE achieved its in­tend­ed pur­pose which was to help the au­thor­i­ties get crime un­der con­trol.

“We would just want to say at this point, that we are grate­ful for the out­comes that we have seen thus far com­ing out of the SoE, un­der­stand­ing that the SoE was in­sti­tut­ed be­cause of the in­creased crime sit­u­a­tion that oc­curred in 2024, in re­la­tion to the in­tel­li­gence that was gath­ered which sug­gest­ed there would be reprisal killings as it re­lates to gang war­fare.”

The CoP as­sured, “I must say that when we look at our re­sults this time, we can say that we were able to avert those things be­cause of the SoE, and above all, be­cause of a strong team spir­it with­in the TTPS.”

The SoE, which took ef­fect on De­cem­ber 30, 2024, and end­ed on April 13, led to a to­tal of 4,038 peo­ple be­ing ar­rest­ed, of which 50 were held un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO).

A to­tal of 1,590 peo­ple ar­rest­ed dur­ing the SoE were charged with a va­ri­ety of of­fences, in­clud­ing be­ing a gang leader; be­ing a gang mem­ber; pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed weapons; il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion; drug traf­fick­ing; nar­cotics pos­ses­sion; mur­der; and con­spir­a­cy to mur­der, among oth­ers.

Prais­ing all law en­force­ment per­son­nel for their com­mit­ment dur­ing the 105 days, Ben­jamin said re­duc­tions record­ed in var­i­ous cat­e­gories were a tes­ta­ment to their hard work and ded­i­ca­tion.

For the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­ods—homi­cides moved from 160 in 2024 to 113 in 2025; while wound­ings and shoot­ings went down­wards from 209 in 2024 to 145 this year.

Rob­beries moved from 750 in 2024 to 475 this year; with mo­tor ve­hi­cle lar­ce­ny drop­ping from 375 last year to 194 this year.

Promis­ing to main­tain these suc­cess­es mov­ing for­ward, Ben­jamin pre­dict­ed a new nor­mal for T&T, as he said they would be tak­ing the lessons learnt to de­vel­op and re­in­force what must be done to keep the coun­try and cit­i­zens safe.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Natasha George thanked all po­lice of­fi­cers, as she ac­knowl­edged they had, “risen to the de­mands of our cit­i­zens dur­ing this very de­mand­ing time.”

“You have stood on the front­lines with courage, com­mit­ment, and an un­shak­able sense of du­ty. Your sac­ri­fices have not gone un­no­ticed.”

In­di­cat­ing that 5,192 op­er­a­tions dur­ing the SoE had been no easy feat to pull off, as it re­quired a pre­cise al­lo­ca­tion of re­sources, act­ing DCP, Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon con­firmed that 3,561 pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers had been tar­get­ed, while over 36,000 search­es of homes, ve­hi­cles and spaces were car­ried out dur­ing the SoE. A to­tal of 17,635 traf­fic of­fences were de­tect­ed dur­ing the time, which he ad­mit­ted “were quite a lot for the pe­ri­od.”

With 205 il­le­gal firearms and 4,364 as­sort­ed rounds of am­mu­ni­tion re­cov­ered dur­ing the SoE, of­fi­cials said the part­ner­ship ini­tia­tive with Crime Stop­pers, where mon­e­tary re­wards were dou­bled for pis­tols, hand­guns and au­to­mat­ic ri­fles, yield­ed three guns.

SoE de­tainees charged

The TTPS yes­ter­day re­vealed that the East­ern Di­vi­sion Gang Unit had charged Thomas Ali and Akim Pur­celle for be­ing gang mem­bers.

The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Gang Unit al­so charged Kar­risa Ram­paul, Naph­tal­ie Bon­na­part, Joshua Mone, Shaquille Pin­der and Jar­rel Ba­boolal–along with Cur­tis Dick, who is an in­mate at the Port-of-Spain Prison, for con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der.

The North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Gang Unit charged Joven Gomes for be­ing a gang mem­ber and the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion Gang Unit charged Shane Ben­i­to for at­tempt­ed mur­der and pos­ses­sion arms and am­mu­ni­tion.

The Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit charged Ke­ma Mc Shine and ECRC in­mate Ka­mu Fari for trans­mit­ting sound from in­side the prison for si­mul­ta­ne­ous re­cep­tion out­side the Prison.

Car­lvin Lee was charged for be­ing a gang leader.