PM warns criminals to leave seven designated policing areas

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the heads of spe­cial op­er­a­tions across the coun­try’s sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts will be put in place “soon,” as she warned crim­i­nals to leave ar­eas where the new mea­sures will be im­ple­ment­ed.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to use “hard polic­ing mea­sures” un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion, which is now law.

Asked what mes­sage she had for law­break­ers, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I sug­gest they leave ar­eas where the SO (spe­cial op­er­a­tions) is go­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed. We are go­ing to im­ple­ment hard polic­ing mea­sures in these ar­eas.”

She added, “I can say for cer­tain that UNC-con­trolled ar­eas will have spe­cial op­er­a­tions.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so dou­bled down on her pre­vi­ous po­si­tion that the mea­sures would be im­ple­ment­ed in ar­eas con­trolled by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, while sug­gest­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled com­mu­ni­ties could be ex­clud­ed.

Asked di­rect­ly whether spe­cial op­er­a­tions would take place on­ly in Gov­ern­ment-con­trolled ar­eas or na­tion­wide, the Prime Min­is­ter re­ferred to her pre­vi­ous state­ments on the is­sue.

“I al­ready gave my opin­ion on this. I am not beg­ging to help any­one who doesn’t want help,” she said.

“If the PNM doesn’t want the brave men and women of the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices (to) pro­tect their con­stituents and pre­fer vi­o­lent crim­i­nals to ter­rorise them, that’s fine by me.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, how­ev­er, that she would en­sure crim­i­nals faced “hard polic­ing” in UNC ar­eas, adding that her par­ty sup­ports the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and De­fence Force.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so did not di­rect­ly an­swer Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions about how the per­mit sys­tem for closed ar­eas would op­er­ate or how peo­ple would trav­el be­tween closed and non-closed ar­eas.