An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has vowed to in­crease its ef­forts to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal gangs op­er­at­ing across the coun­try—and has pledged to chan­nel more re­sources to­wards this fight.

The promise came two days af­ter the T&T Postal Cor­po­ra­tion (TTPost) or­dered em­ploy­ees to de­sist from wear­ing or us­ing any form of num­ber­ing which could be as­so­ci­at­ed with or linked to crim­i­nal gangs, as they could be­come tar­gets as they go about their dai­ly du­ties.

In an in­ter­nal mem­o­ran­dum dat­ed May 16 and signed by TTPost’s act­ing se­cu­ri­ty man­ag­er Don­na Bournes, de­liv­ery lead­ers and of­fi­cers were ad­vised, “With im­me­di­ate ef­fect, de­liv­ery of­fi­cers are not to wear and or car­ry any item, cloth­ing, shoes, caps, hand­bags, um­brel­las or any oth­er para­pher­na­lia while out on de­liv­ery bear­ing the num­bers 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 as these num­bers rep­re­sent dif­fer­ent gangs across com­mu­ni­ties name­ly: Tyson, Ras­ta City, EBG, Six, Boom­bay Gang and Po­lice.

“This has be­come nec­es­sary due to the ac­cel­er­at­ed gang-re­lat­ed shoot­ings, reprisals and oth­er in­ci­dents with­in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties. Peo­ple are kind­ly asked to ad­here to this pol­i­cy to main­tain their per­son­al se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ly de­liv­er the mail.”

A re­lease from the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit yes­ter­day read, “We would like to as­sure the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, as well as mem­bers of the pub­lic, that we will in­crease our ef­forts and chan­nel our re­sources with the aim of dis­man­tling said gangs, who im­pinge on the every­day lives of cit­i­zens.”

Of­fi­cials said their re­sponse would take var­i­ous forms, which in­clud­ed “in­creased pa­trols and high­er vis­i­bil­i­ty in the af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.”

They in­sist­ed this mea­sure would act as a de­ter­rent to law­less con­duct.

Mean­while, the TTPS said it in­tend­ed to con­tin­ue di­a­logu­ing with all stake­hold­ers to strength­en part­ner­ships which were, “ul­ti­mate­ly aimed at restor­ing a sense of se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty to per­sons who live and work in these ar­eas and through­out the coun­try.”