The mass mur­der of five peo­ple in Laven­tille is be­ing re­gard­ed as a reprisal killing which posed a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, prompt­ing a State of Emer­gency be­ing called.

Gov­ern­ment’s de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency yes­ter­day has sparked a wave of crit­i­cism from the lead­ers of sev­er­al po­lit­i­cal par­ties, chief among them UNC and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has chalked it up to “po­lit­i­cal gim­mick­ry.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency in T&T rais­es more ques­tions than an­swers, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing its ef­fec­tive­ness and the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to the crime cri­sis.

This is how crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad is de­scrib­ing the state of emer­gency de­clared in T&T yes­ter­day as he called for a tar­get­ed at­tack on the root caus­es of crime rather than a “broad-brush” re­sponse to the high crime rate.

Ro­man Catholic nun Sis­ter Gail Ja­groop has called on mourn­ers to for­give the killer of 36-year-old ju­di­cial sup­port of­fi­cer Sta­cy Gopauls­ingh, who was chopped to death dur­ing a vi­o­lent home in­va­sion in Moru­ga ear­ly on De­cem­ber 23.

Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd has an­nounced a tem­po­rary pause in its search ef­forts for off­shore work­er Pe­te Phillip, who dis­ap­peared at sea af­ter a par­tial col­lapse of Rig 110 last week. The com­pa­ny stat­ed that the break is nec­es­sary to en­sure the safe­ty of the site be­fore re­sum­ing re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has shed light on his where­abouts Mon­day, not­ing that one of his broth­ers has died.

Lawyers have ques­tioned why a State of Emer­gency (SoE) was pro­claimed by the Gov­ern­ment with­out reg­u­la­tions be­ing in place.

AM­CHAM T&T has said that it is pleased that the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing ad­di­tion­al steps to com­bat out-of-con­trol crime in T&T.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar has re­spond­ed to the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency in T&T.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad is ex­press­ing scep­ti­cism in re­sponse to the gov­ern­ment's an­nounce­ment of a State of Emer­gency.

Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art Young has out­lined the specifics of a State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­clared to ad­dress es­ca­lat­ing crim­i­nal vi­o­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Young em­pha­sised that the mea­sures aim to tar­get vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­volv­ing il­le­gal firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and ex­plo­sives, while en­sur­ing that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens' rights are min­i­mal­ly im­pact­ed.