Cops hunt for 17 suspects

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Sev­en­teen peo­ple have been named in a mass de­ten­tion or­der is­sued overnight un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, the largest such use of the pow­er since the start of the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE).

The lat­est or­ders, signed by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, in­clude two women and three Venezue­lan na­tion­als.

The or­ders state the in­di­vid­u­als were iden­ti­fied through “con­fi­den­tial in­tel­li­gence” and that de­ten­tion is nec­es­sary to pre­vent acts “prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.”

The no­tices list al­le­ga­tions in­clud­ing in­volve­ment in or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups, traf­fick­ing in firearms and nar­cotics, hu­man traf­fick­ing, kid­nap­ping, ex­tor­tion, ve­hi­cle theft and planned re­tal­ia­to­ry vi­o­lence us­ing high-pow­ered weapons.

The lat­est batch forms part of a wider use of emer­gency de­ten­tion pow­ers.

Dur­ing the pre­vi­ous SoE, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Par­lia­ment on Sep­tem­ber 19, 2025, that 120 pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders (PDOs) had been is­sued, 78 peo­ple had been de­tained, 42 were still out­stand­ing and 18 had been charged. By the end of that SoE in Jan­u­ary, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed 117 de­tainees were re­leased.

Last week, po­lice re­port­ed that 39 peo­ple had been held un­der PDOs since the start of the cur­rent SoE, de­clared on March 3, with 16 ap­proved at the time.

The newest set of 17, there­fore, rep­re­sents the largest num­ber of de­ten­tion or­ders is­sued at once dur­ing the cur­rent emer­gency pe­ri­od.

One of those de­tained is a 16-year-old boy, iden­ti­fied as Jay­lon George, who was held un­der a PDO af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed on March 7 along with sev­er­al oth­er men at a house.

Po­lice de­tained him af­ter he was al­leged­ly found at a house with oth­ers and a gun and am­mu­ni­tion were dis­cov­ered dur­ing the op­er­a­tion.

His par­ents in­sist he is in­no­cent and has no crim­i­nal record, claim­ing he was on­ly lim­ing with friends.

His par­ents said the de­ten­tion has af­fect­ed their son’s men­tal health and ed­u­ca­tion, as he is now miss­ing school ex­ams.

Prison of­fi­cials con­firmed the teen is be­ing housed at YTRC.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figuera said the con­tin­ued use of these pow­ers rais­es con­cern.

“Un­der the con­cept of a state of ex­cep­tion, that is a dan­ger­ous prece­dent,” he said. “Be­cause you don’t use a state of ex­cep­tion to fight crime on an on­go­ing ba­sis.”

Figuera said a SoE is meant to re­spond to an im­mi­nent threat to the State, not to func­tion as a long-term crime-fight­ing tool.

He warned that if the ap­proach con­tin­ues, the age of those be­ing de­tained could shift fur­ther down­ward.

“The next day, he is 13 years old. Then ten, nine, eight and sev­en,” Figuera said.

He said the re­peat­ed use of de­ten­tion with­out charge points to deep­er is­sues with­in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem.

“What it points to is the in­ad­e­qua­cy of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus,” he said.

Youth de­vel­op­ment ac­tivist Mti­ma Sol­wazi al­so raised con­cerns, par­tic­u­lar­ly about the de­ten­tion of a mi­nor.

“See­ing that the young man is lit­er­al­ly a mi­nor, I hope that his rights to ed­u­ca­tion… are met,” Sol­wazi said.

He said the child should not be placed in the same en­vi­ron­ment as adult de­tainees.

“We have to en­sure that he’s not mixed with adults,” he said.

Sol­wazi said the sit­u­a­tion high­lights the need for stronger in­ter­ven­tion at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el.

“We need more sup­port with­in the school sys­tem from so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors,” he said.

He al­so called for greater use of youth pro­grammes and com­mu­ni­ty-based ini­tia­tives to ad­dress delin­quen­cy, rather than re­ly­ing on de­ten­tion un­der emer­gency pow­ers.

The de­ten­tion or­ders do not out­line any crim­i­nal charges or court pro­ceed­ings but state that the mea­sures are nec­es­sary to pre­vent threats to pub­lic safe­ty un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions.

Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty: Safe­guards in place for de­tained chil­dren

Chair­man of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, Mar­sha Bai­ley, is reaf­firm­ing the agency’s po­si­tion on the treat­ment and pro­tec­tion of mi­nors de­tained dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency, stress­ing that strict pro­to­cols are in place to safe­guard chil­dren’s rights.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Bai­ley un­der­scored that es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures guide how such sen­si­tive mat­ters are han­dled, par­tic­u­lar­ly when mi­nors in state care are in­volved.

“It should be not­ed there is an es­tab­lished pro­ce­dure for deal­ing with crit­i­cal in­ci­dents,” Bai­ley said.

She ex­plained that these pro­to­cols do not re­quire the Au­thor­i­ty’s board of man­age­ment or its Op­er­a­tions Di­vi­sion to pub­licly dis­close in­ci­dents in­volv­ing mi­nors, in­clud­ing cas­es where a child may have been de­tained or en­gaged in in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour.

Bai­ley em­pha­sised that the guid­ing prin­ci­ple be­hind this ap­proach is the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren’s fun­da­men­tal rights, es­pe­cial­ly their right to pri­va­cy.

“As the child’s right must not and should not be dis­en­fran­chised. The pro­tec­tion of the mi­nor is of ut­most im­por­tance,” she added.