Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed 20 peo­ple dur­ing a pre-Car­ni­val ex­er­cise along Char­lotte Street yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing the two-hour long ex­er­cise be­tween noon and 2 pm, 16 peo­ple were held for gang-re­lat­ed en­quiries, while eight were ar­rest­ed on out­stand­ing war­rants.

Over 60 traf­fic tick­ets were al­so is­sued dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, which was spear­head­ed by ASP Ramesh Sood­een, of­fi­cers de­tained per­sons “fit­ting the pro­file” of re­port­ed snatch-and-grab sus­pects op­er­at­ing in the city.

An of­fi­cer said this was one of the mea­sures to as­sure the pub­lic’s safe­ty.

An an­gry woman, whose two grand­sons were de­tained by po­lice af­ter they ar­rived to meet her in Port-of-Spain and were placed in the de­ten­tion bus for more than half an hour, com­plained that in­no­cent peo­ple were be­ing held due to “pro­fil­ing”, adding it was an alarm­ing de­vel­op­ment.

Ad­mit­ting the 15-year-old was re­leased af­ter she spoke with of­fi­cers, the con­cerned woman wait­ed pa­tient­ly at the cor­ner of Char­lotte and Queen Janelle Com­mis­siong Streets pray­ing for the safe re­turn of the 20-year-old.

Re­quest­ing her name not be pub­lished, the an­gry woman said the boys had come to meet her so they could get hair­cuts ahead of the fes­tive week­end. Deny­ing the boys were in­volved in any­thing un­to­ward, she spoke of hard­ships she had faced in help­ing to raise them.

But she agreed they fit the pro­file of the per­sons be­ing round­ed up by the po­lice for var­i­ous of­fences.

“I am not say­ing the law is not sup­posed to do what they have to do when they do­ing their job, but there are oth­er ways to do it,” she said.

The el­der boy, who had been wear­ing a pink Durag, re­moved it im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter he was al­lowed to ex­it the bus, ex­press­ing re­lief at be­ing re­leased and shar­ing ten­ta­tive smiles with anx­ious fam­i­ly mem­bers.

Isa­iah George, 20, of St Barb’s, was held by of­fi­cers and de­tained for an hour.

Af­ter­wards, he said, “I now reach here and walk­ing up the road when one of them (of­fi­cer) walk up to me smil­ing, ask­ing me what go­ing on. He pull me aside and telling me I in­volved in steal­ing some Venezue­lan woman thing, but I don’t be on that.”

Re­mov­ing the cap from his head, he spec­u­lat­ed, “Prob­a­bly cause my hair plait up and thing ... they feel I fit the pro­file. But they let me go af­ter they say I ain’t fit the de­scrip­tion of the per­son they look­ing for.”

The TTPS said sim­i­lar ex­er­cis­es will con­tin­ue through­out the week­end as part of the ef­fort to en­sure the safe­ty of lo­cals and vis­i­tors dur­ing the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.