PM: Expanded security measures as Carnival enters final stretch

As Car­ni­val 2026 en­ters its fi­nal stretch, po­lice and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies have rolled out ex­pand­ed safe­ty mea­sures for events across the coun­try, with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firm­ing height­ened en­force­ment, wider de­ploy­ments and stricter con­trols for the sea­son’s ma­jor cel­e­bra­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has ac­ti­vat­ed Op­er­a­tion Se­cure De VIBES to pro­mote pub­lic safe­ty, or­der and re­spon­si­ble en­joy­ment dur­ing the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od.

She said the op­er­a­tion in­cludes high-vis­i­bil­i­ty polic­ing, manda­to­ry reg­is­tra­tion of large bands and or­ches­tras, pro­hi­bi­tions on weapons, fire­works and glass bot­tles, en­force­ment of noise reg­u­la­tions, and ac­tion against lewd be­hav­iour and the im­per­son­ation of po­lice of­fi­cers.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said au­thor­i­ties are al­so fo­cus­ing on child safe­ty, re­spon­si­ble al­co­hol con­sump­tion, li­censed trans­port for mas­quer­aders and sober dri­ving, in­clud­ing safe breath checks. The mea­sures ap­ply to ma­jor events, pa­rade routes and com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­bra­tions across the coun­try.

She added that the TTPS and oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies will de­ploy of­fi­cers na­tion­wide, with a vis­i­ble pres­ence at ma­jor events, com­mu­ni­ty fes­tiv­i­ties, pub­lic beach­es, rivers, res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties and oth­er recre­ation­al spaces through­out the long week­end. State agen­cies re­spon­si­ble for beach­es and rivers have been in­struct­ed to in­crease life­guard and safe­ty per­son­nel in an­tic­i­pa­tion of large gath­er­ings.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors to com­ply with po­lice di­rec­tions, say­ing pub­lic safe­ty is a shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

At the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) has al­so in­tro­duced ad­di­tion­al mea­sures for the Pa­rade of the Bands.

NCC se­cu­ri­ty man­ag­er Clyde Charles said se­cu­ri­ty at the Grand Stand main stage will be tight­ened to pre­vent ac­cess by non-mas­quer­aders. He re­ferred to an in­ci­dent on Car­ni­val Tues­day last year, in which a masked man gained ac­cess to the stage and, ac­cord­ing to re­ports on so­cial me­dia, made phys­i­cal con­tact with fe­male mas­quer­aders be­fore se­cu­ri­ty in­ter­vened.

Charles said the NCC re­viewed the mat­ter un­der its ROPE pro­to­col, which stands for Re­flect, Or­gan­is­ing, Prepa­ra­tion and Ex­e­cu­tion, and strength­ened mea­sures to pre­vent a re­cur­rence. He con­firmed that SWAT of­fi­cers will be sta­tioned with­in the des­ig­nat­ed se­cu­ri­ty zone, with sup­port from the TTPS.

The Sa­van­nah has been di­vid­ed in­to four se­cu­ri­ty zones, A, B, C and D, to im­prove cov­er­age and crowd man­age­ment. An air sup­port unit will pro­vide re­al-time up­dates to ground per­son­nel and co­or­di­nate in­for­ma­tion be­tween po­lice and fire ser­vices in the event of an in­ci­dent.