CoP declares SoE ‘100% effective’

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says the six-month-long State of Emer­gency (SoE), which ex­pires at mid­night, was “100% ef­fec­tive.”

In­sist­ing it saved lives, he says while a to­tal of 117 SoE de­tainees will be re­leased by the end of to­day, one should not mea­sure the ef­fec­tive­ness of the SoE by num­bers alone.

How­ev­er, he as­sured those who are re­leased will con­tin­ue to be mon­i­tored by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Asked yes­ter­day if the SoE had achieved the de­sired re­sults, Gue­var­ro said, “I would say that we have achieved a great per­cent­age of the re­sults that we hoped. For me, 100 per cent pros­e­cu­tion would have been the ul­ti­mate re­sult. In terms of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the pub­lic, that is some­thing that I must say that I am pleased with the out­come.”

He added, “We were able to utilise the SoE to great ben­e­fit to­wards pro­tect­ing the mem­bers of the pub­lic.”

Height­ened se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were put in place at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) in San­ta Rosa and the Women’s Prison in Mau­si­ca ear­ly yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing which the phased re­lease of those in­di­vid­u­als de­tained un­der SOE Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) be­gan. Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials con­firmed this in­clud­ed in­creased ve­hic­u­lar search­es and strin­gent checks of all peo­ple ar­riv­ing at both fa­cil­i­ties.

The de­tainees, who were ap­pre­hend­ed be­tween Ju­ly to and this month, were held in con­nec­tion with al­le­ga­tions that in­clud­ed be­ing gang lead­ers/mem­bers/as­so­ciates; pos­ing a threat to na­tion­al safe­ty; and in one in­stance, plot­ting to as­sas­si­nate a gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing an im­promp­tu meet­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, the CoP con­firmed 32 peo­ple, in­clud­ing three fe­males and 29 males, were hand­ed their re­vo­ca­tion or­ders yes­ter­day. They were to be re­leased by 9 pm yes­ter­day, with a fur­ther 85 ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed to­day.

This re­lease, Gue­var­ro stressed, ought not be viewed as a vic­to­ry by the de­tainees.

Asked why the TTPS had been un­able to charge all the de­tainees, he said, “Though we have not met the thresh­old to charge just yet, we are con­tin­u­ing to in­ves­ti­gate and they can face charges lat­er on as our end goal re­mains pros­e­cu­tion. It is still my de­sire to pros­e­cute 100 per cent of them once we get the ev­i­dence.”

Guardian Me­dia learned that 151 PDOs were ex­e­cut­ed and 50 were not, as those sus­pects “had gone un­der­ground.”

Al­though the TTPS will no longer have the au­thor­i­ty to go af­ter these peo­ple, the CoP in­di­cat­ed, “We have par­tic­u­lar pow­ers with re­gards to the leg­is­la­tion that ex­ists for the land. We will con­tin­ue to gath­er our ev­i­dence and once we meet the thresh­old for pros­e­cu­tion, they will be ar­rest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed.”

Of the 36 peo­ple they have ev­i­dence against, 16 have al­ready been charged but are yet to be tak­en be­fore the court, with a fur­ther 20 to be charged fol­low­ing the re­vo­ca­tion of their PDOs, Gue­var­ro said. Among the charges they are fac­ing are firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences, gang-re­lat­ed of­fences and mo­tor-ve­hi­cle lar­ce­ny.

For those who were in the state’s cus­tody be­fore the SoE and al­so de­tained on a PDO, the top cop said, “They will con­tin­ue to re­main in cus­tody. There were per­sons at the ECRC and the MSP who were placed on PDOs. They would re­turn to be­ing nor­mal pris­on­ers of the State.”

Short­ly af­ter the SoE, which was rec­om­mend­ed by Gue­var­ro, be­gan, the Gov­ern­ment de­clared Tetron and Staubles Bay in Ch­aguara­mas as prison fa­cil­i­ties.

“Thus, there are peo­ple who will not be re­turn­ing to the MSP and the ECRC. They will re­main where they are,” he added.

Ac­cord­ing to Gue­var­ro, PDOs gave po­lice the pow­er to de­tain peo­ple to pre­vent them from car­ry­ing out cer­tain acts which may have been in­im­i­cal to the peace of the land.

“The in­tel­li­gence that we had ... we would have ap­proached the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and in 25 per cent of the cas­es, be­cause there are 36 per­sons we en­vis­age to be charged by the end of the SoE, they met the thresh­old for pros­e­cu­tion,” he said.

He un­der­scored, “This is not the po­lice. This is the DPP say­ing yes, you all have met the thresh­old and we can pros­e­cute these per­sons.”

Al­ready reel­ing from the back­lash fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s re­lease of sev­er­al SoE de­tainees, po­lice of­fi­cers had to re­spond to a shoot­ing in Laven­tille, which it was claimed, arose af­ter gun­men at­tempt­ed to kill a man who was re­leased from cus­tody hours ear­li­er.

The man in ques­tion was whisked away by rel­a­tives from the ECRC, but gun­men went in search of him at a house along Vil­lage Coun­cil Street, Laven­tille.

In the dri­ve-by shoot­ing just af­ter 5 pm, three peo­ple, in­clud­ing a 40-year-old woman, a 20-year-old man, and an 11-year-old girl, were all shot as they stood on the road talk­ing to the man.

Asked if the TTPS was now brac­ing for re­tal­ia­to­ry re­spons­es dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, from de­tainees who could be right­ly de­scribed as an­gry and venge­ful, Gue­var­ro as­sured, “The TTPS, as a law en­force­ment fra­ter­ni­ty, has al­ways had a grasp on Car­ni­val from years gone by. We have had his­tor­i­cal suc­cess­es in keep­ing safe car­ni­val pe­ri­ods through­out, and this year, we will con­tin­ue to utilise all that is with­in our re­mit to keep car­ni­val safe.”

At­tribut­ing the 42 per cent de­cline in homi­cides and an al­most com­par­a­tive re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crimes dur­ing the SoE to the de­ten­tion of the 151 peo­ple, Gue­var­ro said, “I would nev­er be com­fort­able un­til T&T is crime-free.”

Even with the de­feat of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill last week, he said the TTPS will not be dis­cour­aged.

“Even as the SoE comes to a close, I want to re­as­sure the pub­lic that we have a strate­gic plan, an op­er­at­ing plan in place. We have oth­er sce­nar­ios that we have en­vis­aged and put things in place to treat with al­ready. Even be­fore the SoE, when I came in­to of­fice, a strate­gic and op­er­a­tional plan was al­ready in ex­is­tence. I added my own vi­sion to it, to make T&T a safer place.”

He said the TTPS had its own Plan B, C and D.

“We plan for the in­evitable, no mat­ter what.”

Asked how he would rate him­self and his per­for­mance thus far, Gue­var­ro said, “I, as an em­ploy­ee, can­not rate my­self. It is the pub­lic, my em­ploy­ers, who must rate my per­for­mance. And at any giv­en time, dif­fer­ent per­sons may want to rate my per­for­mance dif­fer­ent­ly.

“But I must say that there are mem­bers of the pub­lic who, de­spite the re­cent hap­pen­ings, have come out in sup­port both pub­licly and pri­vate­ly. And I want to thank them for con­tin­u­ing to show that lev­el of con­fi­dence in my lead­er­ship of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

He added, “I want to thank them. And for those who do not, who are not in favour, who do not like my style of lead­er­ship, I hope that one day you will re­alise that what I do, I didn’t do it for Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro but I did it for T&T. And that the de­ci­sions I make, even though they may be un­pop­u­lar now, you may soon see the rea­son be­hind the de­ci­sions.”