Police execute 332 PDOs since March 3 SoE

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin has con­firmed that 332 Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) have been ex­e­cut­ed dur­ing the present State of Emer­gency de­clared on March 3.

He gave the sta­tis­tics yes­ter­day on PDOs ex­e­cut­ed up to June 7.

How­ev­er, Ben­jamin, who is DCP in charge of Ad­min­is­tra­tion, said “much more” PDOs were ap­proved by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

But he was un­able to con­firm how many peo­ple were charged as he main­tained that such in­for­ma­tion could be pro­vid­ed by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro or DCP Op­er­a­tions Suzette Mar­tin.

Guardian Me­dia sought to con­tact both Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro and DCP Mar­tin but was un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.

Ben­jamin, how­ev­er, vowed that the po­lice ser­vice would con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty of the pub­lic as the State of Emer­gency (SoE) is ex­tend­ed for an­oth­er three months, not­ing that pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers would be tar­get­ed in an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions.

“The bot­tom line though, is the TTPS re­mains stead­fast in terms of our ob­jec­tives and our ob­jec­tives are to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty in the midst of the SoE. We seek to warn per­sons who are found break­ing or breach­ing the SoE. We will deal with them ac­cord­ing to the law.

“We will be us­ing the PDOs that will be very much a thing we are look­ing at and per­sons threat­en­ing the safe­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, those are the per­sons we will be tar­get­ing.

“Per­sons should be to­tal­ly safe and feel free be­cause we will just be deal­ing with peo­ple who are threat­en­ing the safe­ty, but we will be en­sur­ing the free­dom of ex­pres­sion and the free­dom of the cit­i­zens are para­mount in our minds.”

When asked how of­fi­cers were cop­ing with the ex­ten­sion of the SoE and the de­mands, Ben­jamin said that while leave was not re­strict­ed, it was be­ing care­ful­ly man­aged to en­sure that of­fi­cers were giv­en time to rest, with­out plac­ing the ser­vice at a dis­ad­van­tage.

“We know it’s a very stress­ful time and it’s go­ing to con­tin­ue at least for the next three months or so, so we are pre­pared to en­sure that our of­fi­cers re­al­ly get the men­tal help that is need­ed through the so­cial work­ers and the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit if we have to bring them in, in this sit­u­a­tion as well.

“We are re­al­ly try­ing to work for bet­ter con­di­tions, so of­fi­cers can feel more at home, more re­laxed and have the time off to do some sports, some gym work, these are things we’re look­ing to beef up so there’s a holis­tic ap­proach to en­sur­ing the of­fi­cers are get­ting the best.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, who said the prison ser­vice was al­so pre­pared to im­ple­ment any poli­cies and di­rec­tives of the Gov­ern­ment.

He al­so com­mend­ed the work of prison of­fi­cers in car­ry­ing out their du­ties dur­ing three suc­ces­sive SoEs since De­cem­ber 2024 to the present.

“I am very hap­py to say that our prison of­fi­cers are per­form­ing in terms of the dai­ly man­age­ment of these de­tainees in a way that has been very pro­fes­sion­al and I urge our of­fi­cers to con­tin­ue to do this good work in re­la­tion to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

PDOs un­der pre­vi­ous SoEs

Ju­ly 18, 2025 to Jan­u­ary 31, 2026 SoE:

205 PDOs ap­proved; 153 ex­e­cut­ed

De­cem­ber 30, 2024 to April 13, 2025 SoE:

50 de­tained un­der PDOs; 13 charged