Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly end the State of Emer­gency (SoE), present a cred­i­ble crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy or step aside, de­scrib­ing the mea­sure as a “na­tion­al sham” and a “po­lit­i­cal hoax” on the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has called on the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment to sup­port the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), as the da­ta has showed “we’re on the right path.”

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment is such an an­ti-peo­ple ad­min­is­tra­tion that, fol­low­ing a 50 per cent in­crease in the fine for dis­till­ing with­out a li­cence, peo­ple would not even be able to make "babash" again, Diego Mar­tin North/East PNM MP Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day.

The Gov­ern­ment will be go­ing af­ter white-col­lar crim­i­nals and those who fa­cil­i­tate or­gan­ised crime.

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah is urg­ing au­thor­i­ties to con­sid­er in­tro­duc­ing cur­fews fol­low­ing the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), ar­gu­ing that stronger mea­sures are need­ed to re­gain con­trol of com­mu­ni­ties and send a clear mes­sage to crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

The West­ern Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has record­ed a de­cline in mur­ders and oth­er crimes so far this year, ac­cord­ing to head of di­vi­sion Snr Supt Sylvester Williams.

Hours af­ter videos of a man walk­ing through Cy­press Hills, Union Hall, with a firearm went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia, he was shot dead dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with po­lice yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Still trau­ma­tised af­ter a two-hour home in­va­sion, a 72-year-old woman is call­ing for tougher ac­tion against crim­i­nals.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is chal­leng­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide ev­i­dence that its re­peat­ed use of States of Emer­gency (SoEs) is ef­fec­tive­ly re­duc­ing crime, ar­gu­ing that cit­i­zens are be­ing asked to sup­port ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures with­out ac­cess to the da­ta need­ed to as­sess whether they are work­ing.

Ten in­di­vid­u­als, eight men and two women, have been de­tained un­der Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs).

Po­lice say that in­mates in the same cell as Christo­pher Ban­field, who was beat­en to death on Mon­day, have not yet been in­ter­viewed as en­quiries in­to the in­ci­dent con­tin­ue.

The sto­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pres­i­den­cy is not on­ly the sto­ry of the sev­en in­di­vid­u­als who have oc­cu­pied the na­tion’s high­est of­fice but al­so of the gen­er­a­tions of staff whose qui­et ded­i­ca­tion has sus­tained it for five decades.