Knives, ice picks left in maxi taxis before entering Port of Spain

SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

Po­lice of­fi­cers found 51 weapons, in­clud­ing knives, scis­sors and ice picks, hid­den un­der the seats of maxi taxis en­ter­ing Port of Spain ear­ly on Car­ni­val Mon­day.

The dis­cov­ery came dur­ing stop-and-search ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed by the Tran­sit Po­lice Unit and the Port of Spain CID/CRO Unit along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, in­clud­ing at City Gate, Laven­tille and Tu­na­puna.

Po­lice al­so con­fis­cat­ed sev­er­al cam­ou­flage caps dur­ing the op­er­a­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at City Gate, Supt Robert Joseph of the Tran­sit Po­lice Unit said of­fi­cers were work­ing with di­vi­sion­al po­lice to pro­vide wide cov­er­age and en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty.

“We’re try­ing as much as pos­si­ble to min­imise peo­ple en­ter­ing the city with weapons. Tu­na­puna has a mas­sive J’Ou­vert, so we would have had a large team up there con­duct­ing search­es,” he said.

“We are out here from ear­ly as a proac­tive mea­sure to min­imise any in­ci­dents.”