An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing a bloody week­end with 11 mur­ders record­ed be­tween 8 pm on Fri­day and 10 pm on Sun­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has as­sured cit­i­zens that it is work­ing to solve the crimes and bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

The as­sur­ance was giv­en in a voice note re­leased on Mon­day. How­ev­er, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has not yet com­ment­ed on the shock­ing sta­tis­tics.

In the two-minute record­ing, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Curt Si­mon said: “Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions of­fi­cers are work­ing te­dious­ly and are con­duct­ing sev­er­al leads to solve each case and bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

“The TTPS is us­ing tech­nol­o­gy and in­tel­li­gence-based polic­ing as part of its strat­e­gy to solve our cur­rent homi­cide is­sues.”

Si­mon added: “Our ini­tial in­for­ma­tion is that most of the homi­cides were trig­gered by a fight for drug and turf wars be­tween feud­ing gang mem­bers ... our in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in­tel­li­gence ma­chin­ery have been de­ployed.”

He said strate­gic ex­er­cis­es were con­duct­ed across the ten polic­ing di­vi­sions through­out the week­end which were fo­cused on drug dens and known gangs and their af­fil­i­ates as po­lice of­fi­cers moved to re­cov­er nar­cotics, arms and am­mu­ni­tion.

“These ex­er­cis­es net­ted over 34 per­sons,” he said.

Sev­er­al per­sons have ap­peared in court charged with of­fences re­sult­ing from those ex­er­cis­es.

“The CoP and the ex­ec­u­tive of the TTPS wish to as­sure the na­tion that we are work­ing and we will not rest un­til we put these mat­ters to some sort of res­o­lu­tion,” Si­mon said.

The last time the coun­try record­ed such bloody sta­tis­tics was at the start of the year when 11 mur­ders were record­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary 27 and 29.

Ques­tions sent to Hare­wood-Christo­pher via What­sApp for com­ment on the spate of mur­ders went unan­swered yes­ter­day. Emails were al­so sent to the Crime And Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) Unit and TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit re­quest­ing a com­par­i­son of the mur­der toll for this year with the same pe­ri­od last year, a break down of homi­cides for both pe­ri­ods and in­for­ma­tion on the re­cov­ery of il­le­gal weapons, es­pe­cial­ly high pow­ered ri­fles.

Guardian Me­dia was told there are pro­to­cols in place for re­quest for in­for­ma­tion by the me­dia. They must be ap­proved by the CoP. TTPS of­fi­cials said this was not Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tempt to mi­cro-man­age but rather to en­sure there is ac­count­abil­i­ty with the in­for­ma­tion and sta­tis­tics put in­to the pub­lic do­main.