Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says an ar­rest is im­mi­nent in con­nec­tion with a se­ries of bomb threats that trig­gered height­ened se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures across Trinidad and To­ba­go ear­li­er this week.

Alexan­der pro­vid­ed the up­date yes­ter­day while speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a po­lice road traf­fic ex­er­cise in Mt Hope.

The Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, de­clined to dis­close de­tails about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, say­ing do­ing so could alert the sus­pect and com­pro­mise the ef­forts of law en­force­ment.

“An ar­rest is im­mi­nent,” Alexan­der said when asked for an up­date on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the bomb threats.

He sub­se­quent­ly ex­plained why he was not pre­pared to pro­vide fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

“When you do an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, you can’t tell every­body any­thing,” Alexan­der said, adding that a sus­pect could be mon­i­tor­ing pub­lic state­ments and ad­just­ing their ac­tions based on in­for­ma­tion re­leased by au­thor­i­ties.

“You have to be care­ful what you say to peo­ple now, you know, more than ever,” he said.

On Wednes­day, a se­ries of 11 bomb threats were re­port­ed, tar­get­ing sev­er­al courts, a shop­ping plaza and a Gov­ern­ment min­istry.

The threats re­sult­ed in se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice, be­ing placed on height­ened alert as au­thor­i­ties re­spond­ed to the re­ports and car­ried out se­cu­ri­ty checks.

Yes­ter­day, po­lice con­duct­ed na­tion­wide road traf­fic ex­er­cis­es as part of a joint pub­lic safe­ty ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing the po­lice, li­cens­ing au­thor­i­ties and traf­fic of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, Alexan­der stressed that the ex­er­cise was not a di­rect re­sponse to the bomb threats.

Asked whether the ac­tiv­i­ty was linked to the se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns ear­li­er in the week, he said: “It’s a re­sponse to pub­lic safe­ty. That’s what it is, and that’s all it is.”

He de­scribed yes­ter­day’s ex­er­cise as part of an on­go­ing ef­fort to im­prove co­or­di­na­tion be­tween law en­force­ment and oth­er agen­cies.

The Min­is­ter al­so used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to crit­i­cise mo­torists and mem­bers of the pub­lic who alert oth­ers to the pres­ence of po­lice dur­ing en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es.

He said such be­hav­iour could po­ten­tial­ly as­sist crim­i­nals who may be at­tempt­ing to evade law en­force­ment.

Alexan­der urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to in­stead pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to po­lice, li­cens­ing of­fi­cers or traf­fic of­fi­cers when they ob­serve sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty.

“If you’re dri­ving here, some­one en­tered your home in Ch­agua­nas or wher­ev­er you live, and they are on their way to make good of their es­cape, you be­ing a vic­tim just in­di­cat­ed to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment that there are po­lice here to stop you,” he said.

The Min­is­ter al­so pro­vid­ed an up­date on the roll­out of the new po­lice posts which will be joint­ly run by po­lice and army per­son­nel.

He said ad­di­tion­al posts are ex­pect­ed to be opened as the ini­tia­tive pro­gress­es, al­though they have not yet been ful­ly com­mis­sioned.

“We are close enough. As time goes by, we will open more of these posts,” Alexan­der said.

He said au­thor­i­ties are as­sess­ing how the ini­tia­tive can im­prove safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for cit­i­zens, while yes­ter­day’s ex­er­cise was aimed at strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion among agen­cies.