CAUGHT IN CROSSFIRE

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to use of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act in Mal­oney, say­ing in­tel­li­gence re­ports point­ing to es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence left him with lit­tle choice but to act.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro said he would make no apol­o­gy for us­ing the leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect res­i­dents and pre­vent fur­ther blood­shed.

The Pres­i­dent in­voked Sec­tion 11(1) of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act on Tues­day, de­clar­ing the Mal­oney Build­ings Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment a closed area. The de­c­la­ra­tion was pub­lished in Le­gal No­tice 847 of 2026, while Le­gal No­tice 848 im­posed a night­ly cur­few from 9 pm to 5 am.

The move came a day af­ter a video cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia show­ing a gun­man fir­ing in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly in the pres­ence of res­i­dents.

Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day said he re­ceived the footage on Mon­day and im­me­di­ate­ly in­struct­ed Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Aval­on Frank, com­man­der of the dis­trict, to take ac­tion.

“It was not mere­ly a record­ing of a crim­i­nal act, it was a vi­su­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of or­di­nary cit­i­zens, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, be­ing ter­rorised,” he said of the in­ci­dent seen in the video.

“It showed women run­ning for cov­er. It showed lit­tle chil­dren flee­ing in pan­ic and it showed a com­mu­ni­ty be­ing held hostage by crim­i­nal­i­ty. No cit­i­zen in Trinidad and To­ba­go should live with that.”

He said the sit­u­a­tion was be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly volatile, with gangs us­ing the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment as a refuge.

“In­tel­li­gence al­so in­di­cat­ed that these in­ci­dents were linked to his­tor­i­cal gang con­flicts which, in the past, have re­sult­ed in fa­tal, reprisal and pro­tract­ed cy­cles of vi­o­lence. Most con­cern­ing to me was the fact that in­no­cent cit­i­zens were be­ing caught in the cross­fire,” he said.

The de­ploy­ment of po­lice and mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force prompt­ed ques­tions about why sim­i­lar mea­sures were not im­ple­ment­ed in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, where two women were killed at a spa and an at­tor­ney was mur­dered at the end of Oc­to­ber.

How­ev­er, Gue­var­ro said the in­tel­li­gence sur­round­ing Mal­oney pre­sent­ed a dif­fer­ent threat.

“We had to act quick­ly,” he said.

He de­clined to say whether in­tel­li­gence re­ports point­ed to im­mi­nent re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks or fur­ther es­ca­la­tion, main­tain­ing such in­for­ma­tion could not be made pub­lic.

Gue­var­ro said he per­son­al­ly vis­it­ed Mal­oney af­ter the cur­few took ef­fect and found res­i­dents large­ly sup­port­ive of the op­er­a­tion.

“I heard grat­i­tude. I heard re­lief. And I heard res­i­dents say­ing that for the first time in a long time, they’re feel­ing safe,” he said, adding many res­i­dents had been liv­ing in fear of armed crim­i­nals and wel­comed the in­creased pres­ence of po­lice and sol­diers.

Al­though he ac­knowl­edged the re­stric­tions had caused in­con­ve­nience for peo­ple en­ter­ing and leav­ing the com­mu­ni­ty, he in­sist­ed the mea­sure was jus­ti­fied.

“I make ab­solute­ly no apol­o­gy for tak­ing any and all rea­son­able and law­ful mea­sures nec­es­sary to save lives,” he said.

He al­so de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion not to an­nounce the op­er­a­tion in ad­vance, say­ing do­ing so would have com­pro­mised the el­e­ment of sur­prise.

He said po­lice used a loud­speak­er mount­ed on a pa­trol ve­hi­cle to no­ti­fy res­i­dents in the de­vel­op­ment, recog­nis­ing that not every­one had ac­cess to tele­vi­sion, mo­bile phones or the In­ter­net. How­ev­er, he said au­thor­i­ties de­lib­er­ate­ly avoid­ed wider pub­lic an­nounce­ments.

“I hear peo­ple com­plain­ing about com­mu­ni­ca­tion and I am be­wil­dered as to whether or not they want­ed me to an­nounce to the crim­i­nals that we com­ing in the area to lock it down. Let good sense pre­vail and let the po­lice do their job,” he said.

“What I can say is that law en­force­ment and se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies must be per­mit­ted to con­duct their du­ties un­hin­dered and with­out in­ter­fer­ence.”

De­spite those as­sur­ances, the lock­down left res­i­dents seek­ing clar­i­ty on trav­el arrange­ments, per­mit re­quire­ments and ac­cess to the com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing cur­few hours.

Gue­var­ro said two mi­cro-po­lice units had been es­tab­lished at op­po­site ends of the de­vel­op­ment to serve as li­ai­son cen­tres, where res­i­dents and vis­i­tors could ob­tain per­mits and com­mu­ni­cate with of­fi­cers.

Peo­ple were free to move dur­ing the day, he said, but any­one seek­ing to en­ter or leave dur­ing cur­few hours would be sub­ject to po­lice checks.

“The sim­plest method utilised is walk in­to the mi­cro po­lice unit and ap­ply for a per­mit. They will be able to is­sue you a per­mit,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about ac­count­abil­i­ty, Gue­var­ro con­firmed that not all of­fi­cers in­volved in the op­er­a­tion were equipped with body-worn cam­eras. He said the TTPS cur­rent­ly has “a hun­dred and some­thing” op­er­a­tional cam­eras and was in the process of procur­ing ad­di­tion­al units.

“I am cer­tain that there were body cams there last night, but not all of the of­fi­cers would have been af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have them,” he said.

He al­so re­vealed that se­nior of­fi­cers un­der­went re­fresh­er train­ing on hu­man rights and oth­er pro­vi­sions of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act fol­low­ing its procla­ma­tion.

Gue­var­ro de­clined to say how long Mal­oney would re­main a closed area, say­ing on­ly, “The op­er­a­tions of the po­lice with re­gards to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act are dic­tat­ed, and I want the pub­lic to hear this, by your be­hav­iour.

“That is one piece of leg­is­la­tion I had in my toolk­it that I wish I didn’t have to use. Hon­est­ly, I wish I didn’t have to use it, but just know that I am pre­pared to use it.”