A po­lice ex­er­cise on Nel­son and George Streets, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day re­sult­ed in the ar­rests of three res­i­dents and the seizure of a quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics. The ex­er­cise be­gan at around 10 am with the ar­rival of a par­ty of of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force and Ca­nine Unit who blocked the road­ways sur­round­ing the build­ings. The heav­i­ly armed of­fi­cers con­duct­ed search­es at sev­er­al homes with­in the build­ings as sev­er­al res­i­dents hurled in­sults to­wards the of­fi­cers. Two po­lice he­li­copters were used dur­ing the op­er­a­tion.

One res­i­dent, who asked to re­main uniden­ti­fied, claimed po­lice per­se­cu­tion in the area due to the re­lease 21 res­i­dents of the area on Sep­tem­ber 12, who were charged as gang-mem­bers un­der the An­ti-Gang Act. The of­fi­cers, who were lead by Sgt Bran­don John, dis­cov­ered 130 grammes of mar­i­jua­na and 116 grammes of co­caine dur­ing the ex­er­cise which end­ed at 2 pm. Po­lice said the drugs were found in a home, on the roof of the build­ings, and hid­den in trees. A ve­hi­cle was al­so im­pound­ed af­ter a snif­fer dog alert­ed po­lice. A lat­er search of the ve­hi­cle re­vealed 56 pack­ets of high grade mar­i­jua­na val­ued at $2,800. The ex­er­cise was head­ed by Se­nior Supt John Mar­tinez and in­clud­ed PCs Bal­win, Ro­driguez and Vic­to­ry.