DCP: 1,588 arrested, 355 charged so far under SoE

Gold Com­man­der of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin, says the num­ber of peo­ple de­tained so far un­der this SoE has al­ready sur­passed the num­ber ar­rest­ed dur­ing the en­tire­ty of last SoE.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Mar­tin said the stats to date show a “sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional mile­stone” 45 days in­to the SoE.

“To date, 258 de­ten­tion or­ders have been ap­proved, with 170 ex­e­cut­ed. These fig­ures have al­ready sur­passed those record­ed at the con­clu­sion of the pre­vi­ous state of emer­gency, which stood at 205 ap­proved and 153 ex­e­cut­ed.”

She said to date, there have been 3,694 op­er­a­tions, re­sult­ing in 1,588 per­sons ar­rest­ed, 355 per­sons charged, 90 firearms re­cov­ered, 2,196 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion seized, 3,146 kilo­grammes of co­caine and 337.040 kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na seized.

This is as a re­sult of de­lib­er­ate, in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al op­er­a­tions, and a sus­tained fo­cus on pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works and not in­ci­den­tal, she said.

“For the pub­lic, the mes­sage is clear: the TTPS is strate­gi­cal­ly tar­get­ing in­di­vid­u­als and groups who pose the great­est threat to the safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of our com­mu­ni­ties, and we are do­ing so with pre­ci­sion and pur­pose. This, how­ev­er, is not a point of con­clu­sion. We are now en­ter­ing a crit­i­cal phase of the State of Emer­gency, where con­sis­ten­cy, ef­fec­tive ex­e­cu­tion, and ac­count­abil­i­ty will de­ter­mine the over­all im­pact of our ef­forts,” she stat­ed

Mar­tin added that the TTPS re­mains ful­ly com­mit­ted to dis­rupt­ing crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es, re­mov­ing high-risk of­fend­ers from so­ci­ety, and restor­ing and main­tain­ing pub­lic safe­ty and or­der.

“Let me be clear, op­er­a­tions will con­tin­ue with in­ten­si­ty, dis­ci­pline, and ze­ro tol­er­ance for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. We will not re­lent. We will not ease the pres­sure. We will con­tin­ue to de­liv­er re­sults in the in­ter­est of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” Mar­tin said.

Her com­ments came hours af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said it was too ear­ly to make any rec­om­men­da­tions on whether or not there is a need to ex­tend the SoE or to en­force any cur­fews, which he said would just im­pede law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. He made the com­ment while be­ing ques­tioned by the me­dia at the end of a Cham­ber of Com­merce fo­rum in West­moor­ings yes­ter­day.