TTPS: Curry duck cook-off ‘did not disrupt operations’

SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

A cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) did not af­fect on­go­ing polic­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, ac­cord­ing to Su­per­in­ten­dent Russ Glo­den.

The event took place on Fri­day at La Ve­ga Es­tate and in­volved a small group of of­fi­cers, along­side teams from the Fire Ser­vice and the Traf­fic War­den Di­vi­sion.

Guardian Me­dia was told rou­tine op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing raids on drug blocks and tar­get­ed search­es, con­tin­ued across the di­vi­sion.

“This is our first an­nu­al cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tion where we in­vit­ed dif­fer­ent en­ti­ties with­in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion. We have the fire ser­vice, we have the traf­fic war­dens, and we al­so have the oth­er sta­tion dis­tricts com­pet­ing and just have fun build­ing, team build­ing event re­al­ly. Just to in­spire team­work and net­work­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties with­in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion,” Glo­den said.

Asked whether the event was ap­pro­pri­ate dur­ing the on­go­ing state of emer­gency, he said on­ly a lim­it­ed num­ber of of­fi­cers were in­volved and op­er­a­tional work con­tin­ued as nor­mal.

“It is some­thing that needs to keep the team to­geth­er be­cause they are of­fi­cers on their on­ly job. Right now there's just a small group do­ing cook­ing and rep­re­sent­ing the sta­tion dis­trict. But there are ex­er­cis­es and op­er­a­tions go­ing on as nor­mal with­in the di­vi­sion.

This event didn't dis­rupt any nor­mal po­lice ac­tiv­i­ties. Our struc­ture is such that all ac­tiv­i­ties con­tin­ue, the op­er­a­tion con­tin­ues, the drug block ac­tiv­i­ties, we're go­ing to deal with those things, it con­tin­ues. We have house search­es, pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers, we have every­thing that is on­go­ing. This is just a team­build­ing event.”

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro at­tend­ed the event but de­clined to com­ment.