CoP praises public for adhering to law during Carnival

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The pro­tec­tive agen­cies re­spon­si­ble for pre­serv­ing the safe­ty of cit­i­zens dur­ing the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions have large­ly praised the pub­lic for ob­serv­ing the reg­u­la­tions and ad­her­ing to the law.

How­ev­er, while se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ac­knowl­edged the sev­er­al homi­cides be­tween Fri­day and yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro main­tained they were not re­lat­ed to the fes­tiv­i­ties.

In­sist­ing their se­cu­ri­ty blan­ket achieved the de­sired re­sults, Gue­var­ro’s claim was sup­port­ed by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, who ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures put in place.

Up to 10.30 am yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro re­port­ed, “We have had no fur­ther re­ports of any Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed events.”

Com­mend­ing the pub­lic for ad­her­ing to the warn­ings, he added, “Bar a few who de­cid­ed to still drink al­co­hol and dri­ve, it is one of the rea­sons we are hav­ing ac­ci­dents, both fa­tal and oth­er­wise.”

He ap­pealed to par­ents to keep a care­ful eye on their teenage charges, as quite a few had been found to be mix­ing al­co­hol with psy­chotrop­ic drugs. The CoP in­di­cat­ed this had led to a few peo­ple be­ing ren­dered un­con­scious and need­ing to be tak­en to med­ical sta­tions and oth­ers be­hav­ing in a dis­or­der­ly man­ner.

And de­spite the “ex­tra-long” du­ty ros­ter through­out the Car­ni­val sea­son, Gue­var­ro said he was pleased with the turnout by of­fi­cers from the var­i­ous se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Prison Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice, Coast Guard and De­fence Force.

Asked if an ear­ly wrap-up to the Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties yes­ter­day had been con­sid­ered, the top cop said the pub­lic’s be­hav­iour would have been the de­cid­ing fac­tor.

“When they start fight­ing and be­hav­ing in a dis­or­der­ly man­ner, po­lice would have no choice but to lock it down. If they de­cide to be­have in a good way, you know, en­joy the Car­ni­val vibes, they could par­ty till 11.59,” he said.

In ref­er­ence to the lat­est mur­der that oc­curred on Mon­day night in La Hor­quet­ta, Gue­var­ro said that was not Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed.

He said the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus had been work­ing. Ref­er­enc­ing a fa­tal stab­bing along Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, and a shoot­ing in Port-of-Spain, dur­ing the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions on Sat­ur­day, he claimed, “That had noth­ing to do with the Car­ni­val. That had to do with gang vi­o­lence.”

Gue­var­ro said the spillover ri­val­ry from war­ring com­mu­ni­ties had made its way in­to the cel­e­bra­tions, mar­ring the fes­tiv­i­ties some­what.

Asked if he was sat­is­fied with the se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments dur­ing the Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Alexan­der said, “I am quite sat­is­fied with the ef­forts from the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­spec­tive and the ma­jor­i­ty of our cit­i­zens. I am re­al­ly im­pressed.”

Re­gard­ing the homi­cides, Alexan­der called for ac­count­abil­i­ty in re­la­tion to what he called “de­spi­ca­ble acts” that con­tin­ue to be per­pe­trat­ed against law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“So­ci­ety, our coun­try, com­mu­ni­ties, law en­force­ment, the ju­di­cia­ry, in oth­er words, all cit­i­zens and its peo­ple, must hold those per­sons that in­tend to dis­rupt and com­mit crim­i­nal of­fences against its peo­ple ... we must hold them ac­count­able and it is not a polic­ing thing. It’s an all of so­ci­ety thing and that is the di­rec­tion we are go­ing.”

Asked if the kind of polic­ing that had been im­ple­ment­ed for Car­ni­val could be sus­tained in the long term, Alexan­der as­sured, “Of course.”

He added, “At­tempts would be made. We are hu­mans. We are not AI. So, we will suf­fer from burnouts and dif­fer­ent things. How you man­age your man­pow­er re­sources is im­por­tant to how you go for­ward and how you will con­tin­ue this jour­ney in this fight.”

Al­so com­ing in for high praise from their line min­is­ter, Sturge, were T&T De­fence Force mem­bers.

“We are, in essence, giv­ing a sort of buffer to the po­lice in terms of num­bers,” Sturge said.

He said a com­par­i­son of this year’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus to pre­vi­ous years would show there had been on­ly one un­to­ward in­ci­dent.

“You would un­der­stand, no part in the world the po­lice could be om­nipresent so that one in­ci­dent on J’Ou­vert morn­ing is the on­ly in­ci­dent of sig­nif­i­cant note.”

Re­fer­ring to the La Hor­quet­ta mur­der on Mon­day, he said, “The po­lice and the en­tire se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus has done well so far, so I am very sat­is­fied.”

Con­grat­u­lat­ing Gue­var­ro and the Car­ni­val Gold Com­man­der, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Suzette Mar­tin, for over­see­ing a suc­cess­ful sea­son, Sturge smil­ing­ly de­clared, “I think they have done a good job.”

He too did not rule out a long-term arrange­ment be­ing put in place, as he said CCTV cam­eras along the na­tion’s roads were al­so an av­enue which could help in the re­duc­tion of crime gen­er­al­ly.

Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son mean­while said they had record­ed an uptick in the num­ber of road traf­fic ac­ci­dents but was un­able to say if they were the re­sult of al­co­hol con­sump­tion, ve­hic­u­lar de­fects and/or reck­less dri­ving.