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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Griffith seeks safe Carnival

by

20140302

As the reign of the Mer­ry Monarch takes cen­tre stage from 4 am to­day, con­tin­u­ing in­to to­mor­row, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith says the coun­try has been trans­formed in­to a "blue light dis­trict" with hun­dreds of po­lice of­fi­cers on the roads.In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Grif­fith ex­pressed con­fi­dence that 2014 could be the safest Car­ni­val ever.

"It's not that we have trans­formed the coun­try in­to a po­lice state or any­thing like that. Every few min­utes there are about three to four po­lice ve­hi­cles pass­ing on the high­ways and on the roads through­out the coun­try."That in it­self is a de­ter­rent which has re­duced the per­cep­tion of crime," Grif­fith said.He said some 3,800 po­lice of­fi­cers and 1,800 mem­bers of the De­fence Force had been de­ployed across T&T for the fes­tiv­i­ties.

"I can as­sure that the en­tire coun­try will be on a lock­down, not on­ly in Port-of-Spain but oth­er ar­eas where Car­ni­val is tak­ing place. We have spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tional plans in place. It is a mam­moth op­er­a­tion and of­fi­cers will be on du­ty un­til stand down," Grif­fith added.He al­so urged cit­i­zens to play their part in the fight against crime by re­lay­ing in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice.

In giv­ing an ex­am­ple, Grif­fith said on Sat­ur­day there was a mas­sive traf­fic pile-up along the west­ern penin­su­la be­cause a bus broke down. With­in min­utes, how­ev­er, po­lice were on the scene af­ter re­ceiv­ing a re­port.He said the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) was work­ing close­ly with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and oth­er Car­ni­val bod­ies in the co-or­di­na­tion of in­for­ma­tion as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

He al­so warned that of­fi­cers would be placed at strate­gic lo­ca­tions and any­one want­i­ng to en­ter the city with weapons or nar­cotics would be stopped, searched and ar­rest­ed."The search­es would be spo­radic and there would be live feed from the he­li­copters to the NOC. Ob­vi­ous­ly we can­not re­veal where the of­fi­cers would be placed, but those en­ter­ing Port-of-Spain whether trav­el­ling [in a vhi­cle for hire] or dri­ving should be warned of the road blocks and the spo­radic search­es," Grif­fith said.

He said he would al­so be in var­i­ous lo­ca­tions through­out the coun­try to­day and to­mor­row, in­clud­ing Port-of-Spain, Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas, San Fer­nan­do and To­ba­go.

Car­ni­val­Safe­ty tips

When at­tend­ing par­ties and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties you are re­mind­ed that you should:

�2 Wear min­i­mal jew­el­ry

�2 Trav­el in groups to and from ac­tiv­i­ties

�2 Not car­ry around or dis­play large amounts of mon­ey

�2 Not have wal­lets and change purs­es vis­i­ble

�2 Not ac­cept drinks from strangers or leave drinks un­at­tend­ed

�2 Pre­arrange trans­port and des­ig­nate an al­co­hol-free dri­ver.

Par­ents and guardians are re­mind­ed that theirchil­dren should:

�2 All wear iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards bear­ing their name, name of par­ent/guardian, ad­dress and tele­phone num­ber.

�2 Not be left un­su­per­vised at home

�2 Not be left in the charge of strangers

�2 Not use pub­lic con­ve­niences un­less an adult ac­com­pa­nies them

�2 Not ac­cept food or drink from strangers

�2 Not be tak­en to fetes and oth­er adult shows.

When leav­ing house­holds you are re­mind­ed that you should:

�2 En­sure that you se­cure your premis­es

�2 Se­cure all lad­ders and oth­er im­ple­ments in a locked room

�2 Not leave keys in mail­box­es or un­der door mats

�2 No­ti­fy the po­lice if you are go­ing to be away for long pe­ri­ods

�2 Have a friend or rel­a­tive check the house­hold to re­move news­pa­pers and oth­er de­liv­er­ies

�2 Teach your chil­dren to lock the doors when they en­ter

�2 En­sure that the prop­er­ty is il­lu­mi­nat­ed at night

�2 Be ob­ser­vant when re­turn­ing home, es­pe­cial­ly at night.

Re­mem­ber it is an of­fence to:

�2 Go through a red light even at nights

�2 Trav­el in open trays of pick up vans and trucks.


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