Weapons not welcome in Carnival

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has is­sued a stern warn­ing to the pub­lic, em­pha­sis­ing that weapons have no place in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions and that any­one found in pos­ses­sion will face se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing the Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val pa­rade and treat along the East­ern Main Road, Tu­na­puna, yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said that bring­ing weapons to Car­ni­val events sig­nals trou­ble.

He urged rev­ellers, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing J’Ou­vert, to come with good in­ten­tions and leave weapons at home.

“Hav­ing a good time, ‘win­ing,’ jump­ing, hug­ging peo­ple—some­times from dif­fer­ent coun­tries—what does that have to do with weapon­ry? So, what is your in­ten­tion to come with a weapon? Come with your ‘win­ing’ bone ready and like your­self. Don’t come to cause vi­o­lence. We are on dis­play for the world to see, and it’s just a few try­ing to dis­rupt oth­ers,” he said.

Alexan­der al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic that any­one ar­rest­ed dur­ing Car­ni­val will have to wait un­til Ash Wednes­day to ap­pear in court, po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ing their bail.

“The choice is yours … it’s ei­ther you come and have a good time or sit and wait for your next court date,” he said.

Com­ment­ing on the turnout at the Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val treat, Alexan­der ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion, high­light­ing that pro­vid­ing a se­cure en­vi­ron­ment for ven­dors and the pub­lic en­cour­ages greater par­tic­i­pa­tion.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Garvin Hen­ry, who over­sees the North-West area cov­er­ing the West­ern and Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sions, re­in­forced Alexan­der’s warn­ing. He said rev­ellers found with weapons would be ar­rest­ed, and of­fi­cers would ac­cept no ex­cus­es.

Over the years, po­lice have con­fis­cat­ed nu­mer­ous weapons from peo­ple ar­riv­ing in maxi taxis at City Gate in Port-of-Spain ear­ly on Car­ni­val Mon­day.

Hen­ry not­ed that of­fi­cers from mul­ti­ple di­vi­sions, in­clud­ing tac­ti­cal units like the In­ter-Agency Task Force and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, would be on du­ty to han­dle trou­ble­mak­ers.

“Checks will be con­duct­ed not on­ly on J’Ou­vert morn­ing but through­out Car­ni­val, tar­get­ing in­di­vid­u­als in pos­ses­sion of items un­re­lat­ed to rev­el­ling. Per­sons with these items will like­ly find them­selves ar­rest­ed and re­moved from the fes­tiv­i­ties. There is ze­ro tol­er­ance for bring­ing weapons in­to the city, which can on­ly be in­tend­ed to harm oth­ers,” he said.

Hen­ry al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the ban on glass bot­tles re­mains in ef­fect. “On­ly li­censed ven­dors may pos­sess glass bot­tles dur­ing trade, but drinks must be ex­changed in non-glass re­cep­ta­cles.”

He fur­ther warned that crim­i­nals may at­tempt to ex­ploit the fes­tiv­i­ties to tar­get ri­vals, not­ing that po­lice re­main vig­i­lant and pre­pared na­tion­wide to main­tain pub­lic safe­ty.