Yvonne Ba­boolal

What ap­peared to be a re­cruit­ment dri­ve in Cen­tral Trinidad by Ras­ta City and the Mus­lims, two Port-of-Spain based gangs, was nipped in the bud re­cent­ly when the po­lice ar­rest­ed two key play­ers and slapped some 34 shoot­ing and gun charges on them."This will keep them busy in the courts for a long time," head of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion of the Po­lice Ser­vice, John­ny Abra­ham told the Guardian yes­ter­day.

He said about a month ago, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas was the scene of a "lit­tle war" be­tween Ras­ta City and the Mus­lims.Ras­ta City is re­port­ed­ly based in Beetham Gar­dens and the Mus­lims in Laven­tille. Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sources told the Guardian the gangs are view­ing their ri­val­ry as "a sort of Chris­t­ian/Mus­lim war"."They were shoot­ing at peo­ple on the road in Crown Trace, En­ter­prise. About four or five peo­ple were shot but no one was killed," Abra­ham said.

He said of­fi­cers in the di­vi­sion heard "on the ground" that Ras­ta City, with the aid of con­nec­tions in En­ter­prise, was com­ing to Cen­tral."We heard a cer­tain clip in the Mus­lims was try­ing to get men from Ras­ta City to join them. They were try­ing to re­cruit new mem­bers or some­thing."Them fel­las does call meet­ings, you know. We were in­formed of a meet­ing of cer­tain lead­ers in Ari­ma which men from Cen­tral at­tend­ed."

Abra­ham ad­mit­ted there is some gang mi­gra­tion but in­sist­ed Port-of-Spain gangs have "not re­al­ly in­fil­trat­ed" Cen­tral."When things hot in Port-of-Spain, they run down here. When things hot here, they run back Port-of-Spain."But we are keep­ing our heads on the ground. We want no gangs on Cen­tral ex­cept Cepep and URP gangs."Crime track­ing Web site Bul­let Points says there have been some 20 mur­ders in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion for the year.

Abra­ham, not­ing he has to con­firm those fig­ures, said many of the mur­ders that took place in the di­vi­sion this year were crimes of pas­sion and sev­er­al of them were of the na­ture that the po­lice could not pre-empt. Bul­let Points records the 20 peo­ple were ei­ther shot, beat­en, stabbed or stran­gled.Giv­ing an ex­am­ple of the kinds of mur­ders the po­lice can­not avoid, he said, "For in­stance, you had two men ar­gu­ing in­side a house over mon­ey and one stabbed the oth­er.

"There was no pre­vi­ous re­port of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or court mat­ters. In an­oth­er case, a man stran­gled his wife and drank poi­son. There was no sign of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­fore­hand to warn the po­lice. There are some mur­ders you just can't get a grip on."A man was shot and killed in a bar in Cou­va by an­oth­er man pass­ing in a car and shoot­ing at the crowd."And some of the in­ten­tion­al homi­cides were drugs-re­lat­ed, he said.

"A known drugs deal­er in Chase Vil­lage was shot and killed in En­ter­prise but we still were not able to as­cer­tain a clear mo­tive for the mur­der. A big gold chain was miss­ing from his neck so we don't know if it was a rob­bery."On his plan to deal with mur­ders in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Abra­ham said the po­lice try to take proac­tive mea­sures. "From the time we hear an area is hot, we move in one time and try to re­cov­er firearms.

"Al­so, on a week­ly ba­sis, we do about 1,500 stop and search ex­er­cis­es and reg­u­lar road blocks any­where, any­time. This pre­vents peo­ple from trav­el­ling with firearms from one area to an­oth­er."Abra­ham re­called the re­cent shoot­ings in The Wall on Or­ange Field Road in Chase Vil­lage, in which one man was shot and killed by the po­lice and an of­fi­cer in­jured."We picked up about three firearms and since them we have not had a sin­gle re­port from The Wall.

"One or two crea­tures were try­ing to raise their heads in Cou­va but we moved in and dealt with that."In the midst of the pub­lic out­cry against mur­ders com­mit­ted by crim­i­nals, there is al­so in­dig­na­tion over the num­ber of al­leged crim­i­nals be­ing killed by the po­lice.Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said you have to fight fire with fire and po­lice killings of re­port­ed crim­i­nals are on the in­crease.

Of the 30 po­lice killings record­ed in 2014, eleven oc­curred in Cen­tral, sec­ond on­ly to the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion, which record­ed 14 for the same pe­ri­od. Abra­ham was un­apolo­getic. "Peo­ple are free to com­mit crime and when they are cor­nered by the po­lice they can sur­ren­der."I beg them to sur­ren­der. But any­time they en­gage my of­fi­cers (in shootouts) I deal de­ci­sive­ly with them. They have no re­spect for law and or­der.

"Three of my of­fi­cers were shot by crim­i­nals. One is still on sick leave be­cause the ten­don on his arm has not healed."Com­ment­ing on the protests in Laven­tille over the po­lice killing of 19-year old Keshorn Daniel, Abra­ham said, "Some par­ents are too dis­hon­est."If par­ents put down their foot and talk to their chil­dren every day, they may pre­vent them from go­ing down a wrong road."Some are aware their chil­dren are lim­ing with crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Their chil­dren not work­ing any­where and com­ing home in the night with a TV and they not ask­ing them any­thing."Even all this talk about an evil lurk­ing over chil­dren in the land. Par­ents are nat­u­ral­ly care­less," Abra­ham said.