Cops beef up patrols during Sangre Grande power outage

SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

Po­lice from mul­ti­ple units were de­ployed to San­gre Grande on Mon­day night to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty af­ter a pow­er out­age af­fect­ed sec­tions of the town­ship.

Re­ports in­di­cat­ed that elec­tric­i­ty in and around the com­mer­cial cen­tres went off just be­fore 7 pm. Ef­forts to re­store sup­ply be­gan short­ly af­ter.

Po­lice con­firmed that ear­li­er that day, of­fi­cers had re­spond­ed to a bomb threat at the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion. In­tel­li­gence from the Spe­cial Branch to of­fi­cers in the East­ern Di­vi­sion in­di­cat­ed a threat in­volv­ing ex­plo­sives at the sta­tion and a near­by busi­ness place.

The alert prompt­ed a height­ened se­cu­ri­ty re­sponse. Mem­bers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, the In­ter-Agency Task Force, the Gang Unit, the Spe­cial Branch and the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force were placed on stand­by.

Of­fi­cers found no ex­plo­sives. How­ev­er, po­lice main­tained an in­creased pres­ence fol­low­ing the out­age, with spe­cial pa­trols as­signed to what sources de­scribed as “high-risk” ar­eas, in­clud­ing banks and busi­ness places. Of­fi­cers were di­rect­ed to pro­tect “life and re­sources”.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said there had been a feed­er trip in Man­zanil­la at 6:49 pm and that crews closed the feed­er at 8 pm, restor­ing pow­er.

He added that as of 8:45 pm, the Fish­ing Pond, El Re­poso Road area was still with­out elec­tric­i­ty, and that T&TEC was work­ing to re­store sup­ply there.