PoS, Laventille, Morvant residents share mixed views on latest SoE

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Res­i­dents of sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties con­sid­ered “high-crime” ar­eas have ex­pressed mixed views on whether the lat­est State of Emer­gency (SoE) will pro­duce any mean­ing­ful re­sults.

The SoE, which was de­clared on Tues­day via a state­ment from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, is the third such re­sponse to vi­o­lent crime in the past two years.

An SoE was de­clared in De­cem­ber 2024 by the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-led gov­ern­ment in re­sponse to an uptick in gang vi­o­lence in and around east Port-of-Spain and Laven­tille.

An­oth­er SoE was de­clared by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-led gov­ern­ment in Ju­ly of 2025, fol­low­ing ad­vice re­ceived by the po­lice, who warned of a crim­i­nal plot which in­volved the tar­get­ing of law en­force­ment and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures pre­sent­ed by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing in Feb­ru­ary, 182 peo­ple were de­tained un­der Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) dur­ing the SoE.

Re­act­ing to the de­c­la­ra­tion of an­oth­er SoE, sev­er­al Mor­vant res­i­dents said they were not op­ti­mistic that the lat­est re­sponse to crime would be any more suc­cess­ful than the first.

One res­i­dent, Glen­ford Mitchell, said he did not have very high ex­pec­ta­tions, adding that he felt a more mean­ing­ful an­ti-crime strat­e­gy would be for the gov­ern­ment to in­vest more re­sources in cre­at­ing jobs in the neigh­bour­hood.

Mitchell, draw­ing ref­er­ence to his re­cent job loss fol­low­ing the ter­mi­na­tion of Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­tracts last year, said the des­per­a­tion of not earn­ing an in­come was a ma­jor fac­tor in crime.

“Every­body wants a work. If they had jobs, they wouldn’t be on no crime thing.

“A man has to eat and right now with­out any work it re­al­ly hard. As you can see right now I home, a man has to look for it how­ev­er he can; he has to live and do what­ev­er he has to do, but this SoE isn’t do­ing any­thing.

In Mc­Shine Lands, Laven­tille, res­i­dents said they felt the SoE would en­hance safe­ty in the neigh­bour­hood, es­pe­cial­ly in the wake of the mur­ders of Keon Alexan­der, Dwayne Alexan­der and Jesse Nel­son in the area last Fri­day.

One res­i­dent said while any de­ci­sive ac­tion against crime was wel­comed, he was dis­ap­point­ed that more was not be­ing utilised to keep ca­reer crim­i­nals away from so­ci­ety for good.

“It can­not be a sit­u­a­tion where a man is get­ting ar­rest­ed over and over again, some­times for the same of­fence and he keeps ac­cess­ing bail to come back out­side and cause more hav­oc.

“They (crim­i­nals) treat­ing this sys­tem like a game be­cause right now it come like we spin­ning top in mud.”

The man who said he was at home when he heard the vol­ley of gun­fire from the triple mur­der said he was still shak­en since the in­ci­dent, as he spoke with Guardian Me­dia through a win­dow at his home.

One shop­keep­er in the same neigh­bour­hood said even with the de­c­la­ra­tion of the SoE, many res­i­dents con­tin­ued to stay in­side out of fear that the gun­men from last week’s at­tack would re­turn.

The res­i­dent said while she en­dorsed the lat­est SoE, she hoped the po­lice di­rect their at­ten­tion and re­sources in dis­rupt­ing crim­i­nal net­works in­stead of ha­rass­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“Once they have the SoE and pa­trolling 24/7 that will be good. I like it when I see the po­lice pres­ence and that SoE doesn’t both­er me one bit, be­cause I have noth­ing to hide from the po­lice.

“But they should go to the crim­i­nals who they know in­stead of just want­i­ng to be mis­er­able to reg­u­lar every­day peo­ple.”

Re­call­ing past rob­beries at her home, she agreed that there was need for a firmer law-en­force­ment re­sponse to pre­vent re­peat of­fend­ers from re­turn­ing to past habits.

At the Man­go Rose Hous­ing Com­plex in east Port-of-Spain, res­i­dents were less hope­ful that the lat­est re­sponse from Gov­ern­ment would achieve any­thing, as they con­tin­ued to live in fear since the mur­der of Dwayne Si­mon at the com­pound last month.

“Peo­ple don’t even lime or sit down out­side on the steps where he (Si­mon) got lick down ... they pre­fer to stay in­side the court­yard by that tree where they can see peo­ple com­ing from a dis­tance,” one man said be­fore walk­ing away.

An­oth­er res­i­dent who sells food from her home in the neigh­bour­hood said while she did not want to be over­ly pes­simistic over any po­ten­tial ben­e­fits, she did not have very high ex­pec­ta­tions.

“To be hon­est, they could call 99 SoEs, and the re­sults would be the same, and that’s be­cause if some­one is re­al­ly de­ter­mined to come and kill some­one else, they will find a way to do it.

“You know how many times peo­ple were bussing shots right here and there were po­lice just over the bridge and noth­ing hap­pened?”