Four held for drunk driving in Tobago

Four peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol dur­ing po­lice op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go on Fri­day as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in­ten­si­fied se­cu­ri­ty for Car­ni­val 2026.

The ar­rests were made dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Res­olute Shield in Scar­bor­ough and Ba­co­let be­tween 8.30 am and 12.30 pm.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, the four men, aged 30, 28, 40 and 41, were found to have al­co­hol read­ings above the le­gal lim­it.

The high­est read­ing was record­ed by a 41-year-old man from On­tario, Cana­da, at 74 mi­cro­grammes of al­co­hol per 100 mil­li­l­itres of breath, 39 mi­cro­grammes above the per­mit­ted lim­it.

The oth­er read­ings were 68 mi­cro­grammes, 59 mi­cro­grammes and 43 mi­cro­grammes.

Po­lice al­so com­plet­ed nine stop-and-search forms and is­sued 13 fixed penal­ty no­tices for traf­fic vi­o­la­tions, in­clud­ing fail­ure to wear seat belts, ex­pired in­spec­tion stick­ers, de­fec­tive tyres, dri­ving with­out a tint ex­emp­tion and car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers in a dan­ger­ous man­ner.

The ex­er­cise fo­cused on the Stink and Dut­ty event at the Pa­rade Grounds in Ba­co­let, as well as pas­sen­gers and ve­hi­cles ar­riv­ing at the Scar­bor­ough Port.

The TTPS said no traf­fic-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents or ma­jor crimes were re­port­ed dur­ing the op­er­a­tion.

In a sep­a­rate road­block ex­er­cise in Shir­van and Crown Point be­tween 10 am and 2 pm, three peo­ple were ar­rest­ed.

A 26-year-old Buc­coo man was ar­rest­ed for us­ing ob­scene lan­guage, while a 25-year-old Bon Ac­cord man was held for dri­ving with­out a per­mit, hav­ing nev­er been is­sued one.

A 39-year-old Canaan man was al­so ar­rest­ed on an out­stand­ing af­fil­i­a­tion war­rant.

Of­fi­cers is­sued 21 traf­fic tick­ets dur­ing that ex­er­cise, in­clud­ing 13 for ve­hi­cles with­out in­spec­tion stick­ers, three for hav­ing no in­sur­ance, two for de­fec­tive tyres, two for fail­ure to wear seat belts and one for breach­ing a traf­fic sign.

Mean­while, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Suzette Mar­tin has de­clared that the di­vi­sion is ready for the re­main­der of To­ba­go Car­ni­val.

“The di­vi­sion is ready,” Mar­tin said fol­low­ing a fi­nal se­cu­ri­ty brief­ing on Fri­day with se­nior of­fi­cers and mem­bers of op­er­a­tional sup­port teams de­ployed from Trinidad.

The brief­ing re­viewed com­mu­ni­ca­tions and se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments on the ground, in the air and at sea.

The sup­port­ing units in­clude the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, In­ter-Agency Task Force, Coastal and Air Sup­port Unit, Op­er­a­tions Com­mand Cen­tre, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment and Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch.

The TTPS said op­er­a­tional plan­ning be­gan in Au­gust, ahead of the start of Car­ni­val events on Oc­to­ber 3.

Mar­tin has al­so vis­it­ed sev­er­al events to as­sess polic­ing arrange­ments and en­sure of­fi­cers de­ployed to To­ba­go are prop­er­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ed.

For the re­main­der of the Car­ni­val sea­son, the Coastal and Air Sup­port Unit will pro­vide aer­i­al sur­veil­lance, mar­itime pa­trols and spe­cialised law en­force­ment sup­port in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard and oth­er law en­force­ment agen­cies.

Drones and ma­rine as­sets will be de­ployed along To­ba­go’s coast­line, at pop­u­lar beach­es, ma­jor Car­ni­val events and sur­round­ing wa­ters.

The TTPS said the op­er­a­tions will help de­tect and de­ter il­le­gal pas­sen­ger trans­port by sea, firearms and nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, reck­less boat­ing and oth­er un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ties.

Joint mar­itime op­er­a­tions will al­so cov­er the wa­ters be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go, sup­port­ed by coastal mon­i­tor­ing and in­tel­li­gence shar­ing.

The po­lice ser­vice thanked pa­trons and vis­i­tors for their co­op­er­a­tion so far and urged the pub­lic to obey traf­fic laws, avoid drink­ing and dri­ving, and take per­son­al safe­ty pre­cau­tions through­out the fes­tiv­i­ties.