AKASH SAMA­ROO

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is seek­ing to weak­en war­ring gangs in Tu­na­puna with what it is call­ing a spe­cial fo­cus on drug blocks in the area.

Speak­ing at Thurs­day’s TTPS me­dia brief­ing, In­spec­tor Ish­mael Pitt said on­go­ing gang war­fare in Tu­na­puna is re­spon­si­ble for a re­cent up­surge in mur­ders.

“We have iden­ti­fied them as the Ras­ta City gang and one of the gangs is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a known gang, we la­bel them in re­la­tion to the ge­o­graph­ic space so we call them the Up­per Tu­na­puna gang but that gang is fu­elled by mem­bers of oth­er gangs.”

In­spec­tor Pitt said the gangs are fight­ing over turf and his­tor­i­cal dif­fer­ences be­tween the groups.

He said their num­bers could be any­where be­tween 30 to 40 peo­ple per gang. And the weapons at their dis­pos­al are wor­ry­ing the TTPS.

“We have been see­ing a pro­lif­er­a­tion of heavy arms in re­la­tion to 5.6 so the cal­iber of weapons is quite wor­ry­ing and is a de­vel­op­ing trend.”

It’s why In­spec­tor Pitt said it is im­per­a­tive that they go af­ter the drugs that fund their abil­i­ty to kill.

“For that rea­son we would have in­creased our drug block fo­cus, so at present there is a man­date on how we are to ap­proach the drug blocks be­cause we be­lieve once we stop the flow of cash we would be able to sti­fle the gangs and the strength they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing at this time.”

Even with the de­crim­i­nal­iza­tion of mar­i­jua­na, Pitt said weed and co­caine re­main the ma­jor drugs that are ped­dled in the com­mu­ni­ty.

He said pa­trols have al­so been in­creased in the area.

In­spec­tor Pitt added that the hilly ter­rain in Tu­na­puna due to its prox­im­i­ty to the North­ern Range and crim­i­nals have uti­lized that fea­ture to elude po­lice and con­duct their killings.

But while the TTPS does its work, Pitt plead­ed with com­mu­ni­ty based or­ga­ni­za­tions to help keep the younger gen­er­a­tion away from the gang cul­ture.

“We don’t just want to treat the symp­toms, but the cause. The youth groups, the com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­gramme we are de­pend­ing on these bod­ies for the soft­er side of polic­ing. How could we im­pact the minds of the young peo­ple to dis­suade them from be­ing gang­sters in the first place?”