Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

A cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) at La Ve­ga Es­tate in Gran Cou­va yes­ter­day, did not dis­rupt nor­mal polic­ing op­er­a­tions, of­fi­cials said.

Speak­ing a the event, Su­per­in­ten­dent Russ Glo­den said rou­tine po­lice work—in­clud­ing raids on drug blocks and search op­er­a­tions—con­tin­ued as nor­mal de­spite the event.

He ex­plained that on­ly a small num­ber of of­fi­cers par­tic­i­pat­ed, along­side rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Fire Ser­vice and Traf­fic War­den Di­vi­sion.

“This is our first an­nu­al cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tion, where we in­vit­ed dif­fer­ent en­ti­ties with­in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion. We have the fire ser­vice, we have the traf­fic war­dens, and we al­so have the oth­er sta­tion dis­tricts com­pet­ing and just have fun build­ing, a team build­ing event re­al­ly. Just to in­spire team­work and net­work­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties with­in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion,” he said.

When asked whether the event was nec­es­sary dur­ing a State of Emer­gency, Glo­den said it was an ac­tiv­i­ty that keeps the team to­geth­er. He re­it­er­at­ed that it didn’t dis­rupt any po­lice ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Our struc­ture is such that all ac­tiv­i­ties con­tin­ue, the op­er­a­tion con­tin­ues, the drug block ac­tiv­i­ties, we’re go­ing to deal with those things, it con­tin­ues. We have house search­es, pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers, we have every­thing that is on­go­ing. This is just a team build­ing event.”

The event was at­tend­ed by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who de­clined to give any in­ter­views to the me­dia.