T&T back under State of Emergency amid spike in gang violence

Trinidad and To­ba­go is once again un­der a State of Emer­gency.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has de­clared a State of Pub­lic Emer­gency with ef­fect from Tues­day, March 3rd, 2026, fol­low­ing ur­gent ad­vice from the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

The de­ci­sion comes just weeks af­ter the pre­vi­ous SoE end­ed on Jan­u­ary 31st.

Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, se­cu­ri­ty brief­in­gs pre­sent­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil on Mon­day re­vealed a trou­bling in­crease in vi­o­lent crime across the coun­try, much of it linked to or­ga­nized crim­i­nal gangs. Of­fi­cials re­port­ed mul­ti­ple deaths from mass shoot­ings and warned of es­ca­lat­ing reprisal at­tacks that threat­en pub­lic safe­ty.

The Coun­cil was al­so told of cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing planned at­tacks on po­lice of­fi­cers, prison of­fi­cers, and mem­bers of the le­gal ser­vices.

In a stern warn­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter said crim­i­nal gangs and re­cent­ly re­leased de­tainees had been cau­tioned that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens were “fed up” — and that an­oth­er SoE would be de­clared if vi­o­lence con­tin­ued.

She re­it­er­at­ed that vi­o­lent gang mem­bers would be re­turned to prison, adding that those who aid and abet crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty — in­clud­ing friends and rel­a­tives — would face con­se­quences as well.

The Gov­ern­ment says the emer­gency mea­sure aligns with its ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to crime, point­ing to re­cent joint op­er­a­tions by the TTPS and the Armed Forces, new leg­is­la­tion aimed at strength­en­ing law en­force­ment, and re­forms with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Of­fi­cials in­sist the move is nec­es­sary to pre­vent re­cent gains in re­duc­ing mur­der rates and vi­o­lent crime from be­ing re­versed.

Fur­ther de­tails on the spe­cif­ic reg­u­la­tions un­der the new State of Emer­gency are ex­pect­ed in the com­ing days.