Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a fiery protest staged by res­i­dents in San­gre Grande on Fri­day night, ahead of a batch of re­cov­er­ing COVID-19 pa­tients be­ing tak­en in­to the area.

Dur­ing the in­ci­dent, res­i­dents re­port­ed­ly burned de­bris along Bridge Road. Around 10 pm close to 15 an­gry res­i­dents re­port­ed­ly protest­ed the plan to re­lo­cate re­cov­er­ing COVID-19 pa­tients to a re­fur­bished home for the aged in the Brook­lyn Set­tle­ment com­mu­ni­ty.

Po­lice who were called to the scene ex­tin­guished the de­bris and sub­se­quent­ly in­ter­viewed the res­i­dents who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ac­tion.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Grif­fith re­peat­ed an ear­li­er warn­ing that peo­ple will not be al­lowed to block roads and burn tyres dur­ing protests.

The CoP said the days of protests by res­i­dents who break the law be­cause they are dis­sat­is­fied with prob­lems in their com­mu­ni­ties will not be tol­er­at­ed.

He ad­vised that any­one seen in the vicin­i­ty of such protests will be in­ter­viewed for lengthy pe­ri­ods to as­sist the po­lice in their probes in­to those re­spon­si­ble for the protests.

The CoP said: “You have your right to protest, you have your right to as­sem­bly, you have your right to march, but we need to un­der­stand that your right could nev­er su­per­sede and over­ride the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go or the rights of oth­ers.”

Grif­fith said while the TTPS was not seek­ing to de­prive peo­ple of their right to protest, there is a thin line be­tween hav­ing rights and breach­ing the law. Video footage show­ing peo­ple at the scene of the protest is al­so be­ing used to form part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The CoP said they will not hes­i­tate to act and ar­rest per­sons in ac­cor­dance with the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, Chap­ter 11:02, Sec­tion 64 (1) (n), which states: “Any per­son who com­mits any of the fol­low­ing of­fences in any street is, for each of­fence, li­able to a fine of two hun­dred dol­lars or to im­pris­on­ment for one month, that is to say, any per­son who: (n) in any way wil­ful­ly ob­structs the free pas­sage of any street.”