TTPS prepared for release of people under revoked PDOs

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice says it has made op­er­a­tional prepa­ra­tions for the phased re­lease of peo­ple whose Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders have been re­voked.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice – Op­er­a­tions Suzette Mar­tin said the TTPS was aware of pub­lic con­cern sur­round­ing the re­vo­ca­tion of PDOs and the re­lease of peo­ple pre­vi­ous­ly held un­der the or­ders.

She said the po­lice di­vi­sions, in­tel­li­gence, in­ves­tiga­tive and op­er­a­tional units re­main co­or­di­nat­ed, with the ser­vice’s polic­ing pos­ture guid­ed by in­tel­li­gence, ev­i­dence and the law.

“There will be ap­pro­pri­ate po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty and tar­get­ed op­er­a­tional ac­tiv­i­ty in ar­eas where our as­sess­ments in­di­cate that this is nec­es­sary,” Mar­tin said.

She said po­lice will con­tin­ue ef­forts to dis­rupt il­le­gal firearms, gang ac­tiv­i­ty and oth­er se­ri­ous crim­i­nal threats, while pro­tect­ing vic­tims, wit­ness­es and vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

Mar­tin stressed that the re­vo­ca­tion of a PDO, or the re­lease of some­one held un­der one, does not by it­self pro­vide grounds for po­lice ac­tion against that per­son.

“Equal­ly, re­lease should not be un­der­stood to mean that a mat­ter has been brought to an end,” she said.

Where a per­son re­mains the sub­ject of an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Mar­tin said the TTPS will con­tin­ue gath­er­ing ev­i­dence and pur­su­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion “to its prop­er con­clu­sion”, whether dur­ing the State of Emer­gency or af­ter it has been lift­ed.

She said any fur­ther po­lice ac­tion would be based on ev­i­dence and tak­en in ac­cor­dance with the law.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der told Par­lia­ment on Fri­day that 702 PDOs had been ap­proved dur­ing the State of Emer­gency, of which 573 had been ex­e­cut­ed.

He said 240 peo­ple held un­der PDOs had been charged as of day 191 of the emer­gency.

Alexan­der al­so re­port­ed that the pro­tec­tive ser­vices had con­duct­ed 13,108 op­er­a­tions, re­sult­ing in 5,767 ar­rests. Law en­force­ment re­cov­ered 318 firearms and 6,414 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

In com­par­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency with pre­vi­ous emer­gen­cies, Alexan­der said 2,028 peo­ple were charged dur­ing the sec­ond SOE. He gave a fig­ure of 240 peo­ple charged from PDOs in the cur­rent SOE. His ref­er­ence to the first SOE was un­clear and is not be­ing used as a nu­mer­i­cal com­par­i­son.

The min­is­ter did not pro­vide a sep­a­rate fig­ure for the num­ber of PDOs that have been re­voked.

Mar­tin said of­fi­cers would con­tin­ue to act with­in the law as the emer­gency pow­ers change.

“Of­fi­cers are ex­pect­ed to act pro­fes­sion­al­ly, pro­por­tion­ate­ly and with due re­gard for the rights of every cit­i­zen,” she said.

She urged the pub­lic to re­main calm and vig­i­lant and to con­tin­ue work­ing with po­lice.

The TTPS al­so urged any­one with in­for­ma­tion about crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty or an im­me­di­ate threat to pub­lic safe­ty to re­port it through the ap­pro­pri­ate po­lice chan­nels.

“The emer­gency pow­ers may change. Our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pub­lic safe­ty does not,” Mar­tin said.