Grande killings prompt heightened police operations

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Days af­ter San­gre Grande busi­ness­man Dan­ny Guer­ra and his em­ploy­ee Ron­dell Adol­phus, al­so known as “Patch,” were killed in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents, TTPS pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer ASP Owie Rus­sell says po­lice in the East­ern Di­vi­sion have in­ten­si­fied op­er­a­tions to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty in the area.

Guer­ra, 48, was shot and killed out­side his Guy Trace of­fice in San­gre Grande on March 13 by gun­men who fled in a white Nis­san Ti­i­da.

On the night of March 23, Adol­phus, 34, was shot dead af­ter leav­ing his cab­in at a Matu­ra re­sort to get ice. He worked as a ma­chine op­er­a­tor for Guer­ra’s com­pa­ny, DG Homes.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s week­ly po­lice me­dia brief­ing at the TTPS Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing on Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, Rus­sell read a state­ment from East­ern Di­vi­sion head Snr Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette, who was not present. The state­ment aimed to re­as­sure the pub­lic that po­lice re­main in con­trol of the dis­trict, with height­ened op­er­a­tions to pre­vent fur­ther vi­o­lence.

“The East­ern Di­vi­sion re­mains acute­ly aware of the po­ten­tial risk en­vi­ron­ment fol­low­ing in­ci­dents of this na­ture,” the state­ment said.

“The Di­vi­sion’s fo­cus is there­fore not sole­ly on in­ves­ti­gat­ing these mat­ters but al­so on pre­vent­ing any sub­se­quent or re­lat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. To this end, the Di­vi­sion con­tin­ues to ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor per­sons of in­ter­est, known of­fend­ers, and in­di­vid­u­als who may pose a risk to pub­lic safe­ty.”

Rus­sell said be­tween March 20 and 23, and con­tin­u­ing up to yes­ter­day morn­ing, po­lice con­duct­ed sev­er­al co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tions across San­gre Grande, Va­len­cia, Ma­yaro, Biche, To­co, and Matelot. These in­clud­ed tar­get­ed pa­trols in high-risk ar­eas, ex­e­cu­tion of out­stand­ing war­rants, and op­er­a­tions fo­cused on pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed parts of San­gre Grande on Mon­day and Tues­day, speak­ing with res­i­dents who ex­pressed fear over the un­pre­dictabil­i­ty of such at­tacks and ques­tioned whether the State of Emer­gency was ef­fec­tive­ly curb­ing crime.

Re­spond­ing to these con­cerns, Rus­sell said po­lice will con­tin­ue ef­forts to re­as­sure res­i­dents, in­clud­ing pos­si­ble com­mu­ni­ty walk­a­bouts to strength­en part­ner­ships and rap­port.

“We will con­tin­ue to do all that we have to do, and if it means go­ing back in­to the com­mu­ni­ty, do­ing com­mu­ni­ty walks, and be­ing on the ground to build a hands-on re­la­tion­ship be­tween the po­lice and the com­mu­ni­ty to en­sure they feel safe, we will en­deav­our to do that,” he said.

Sources con­firmed that as of yes­ter­day evening, no sus­pects had been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the mur­ders of Guer­ra and Adol­phus.

Of­fi­cers from the Re­gion II Homi­cide Bu­reau con­tin­ue their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.