For­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, Stephen Williams, said there is a flawed per­cep­tion by the two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties that a state of emer­gency (SoE) can be used to fight crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Williams, who served as a po­lice of­fi­cer for 41 years and was act­ing com­mis­sion­er from 2012-2018, says the time has come for the Gov­ern­ment and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to pur­sue mean­ing­ful and de­lib­er­ate crime fight­ing ini­tia­tives.

“SoE could nev­er be a strat­e­gy. I start­ed with the flawed process, flawed think­ing be­cause right now the present Gov­ern­ment has in fact fol­lowed the PNM with the per­cep­tion that an SoE can be a strat­e­gy…

“So, it is an ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion to ad­dress a par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion. So, it is not a strat­e­gy. In the con­text of strat­e­gy, the po­lice ser­vice and Gov­ern­ment have to pur­sue de­lib­er­ate strate­gies to con­trol crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said Williams, who was ad­mit­ted to prac­tice as an at­tor­ney-at-law in 1995.

“But if you start with a flawed con­sid­er­a­tion, you would have prob­lems,” Williams told a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme yes­ter­day, adding that crim­i­nals are not afraid to walk around with their guns as there is a lack of prop­er polic­ing un­der the SoE.

He told view­ers some­one could leave To­co, the most north­east­er­ly vil­lage on the is­land of Trinidad and trav­el to Diego Mar­tin and “not feel any dif­fer­ent”.

“And that has to do with how the po­lice are polic­ing the very set pe­ri­od of state of emer­gency. Now, I gen­er­al­ly don’t make these state­ments in the pub­lic do­main, but I have to make it be­cause we need to un­der­stand when there is a state of emer­gency, it is not about a strat­e­gy.

“It is about an im­me­di­ate course of ac­tion to change the course of things. And if we’re deal­ing with crime, to change the course of things around crime. So a crim­i­nal can­not be on the road­way with­out hav­ing the fear that the po­lice will in­ter­cept him with the firearm that he is mov­ing with.”

Williams, who re­tired in 2020, said the po­lice have to re­vis­it the way they are polic­ing over the state of emer­gency, dis­agree­ing with the cur­rent Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s claim that there are 500 se­ri­ous crim­i­nals in this coun­try.

Williams al­so be­lieves a state of emer­gency with­out a cur­few will not bear fruit.

“If you have a state of emer­gency and you have 500 se­ri­ous crim­i­nals, and I hear the Com­mis­sion­er use that term, all you have to do is take up the 500 se­ri­ous crim­i­nals. But even that, in my opin­ion, is flawed.

“Be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go doesn’t have 500 se­ri­ous crim­i­nals. There will be in ex­cess of 3,000 se­ri­ous crim­i­nals. And there­fore you can­not just go out there and ar­rest 3,000 se­ri­ous crim­i­nals be­cause that is larg­er than the pop­u­la­tion at the pris­ons as it ex­ists now.

“So we have to find ap­proach­es to have a lev­el of sus­tain­abil­i­ty over time in ad­dress­ing crime. It will be more im­pact­ful with a cur­few be­cause it will bring a touch on every cit­i­zen and their con­cern in re­la­tion to the events that are oc­cur­ring in the coun­try,” Williams told tele­vi­sion view­ers.

Last week, the TTPS said it had reached a “sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional mile­stone” on the 45th day of the ex­ist­ing SoE, not­ing that it has ex­e­cut­ed 170 of the 258 de­ten­tion or­ders is­sued to date.

“These fig­ures have al­ready sur­passed those record­ed at the con­clu­sion of the pre­vi­ous State of Emer­gency, which stood at 205 ap­proved and 153 ex­e­cut­ed,” said the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) in charge of op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin.

On March 2, the Gov­ern­ment de­clared a na­tion­wide SoE due to a spike in vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, main­ly car­ried out by mem­bers of or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gangs.

A state of emer­gency was first de­clared in De­cem­ber 2024, fol­low­ing an out­burst of gang vi­o­lence. T&T has been un­der a state of emer­gency for about ten of the last 14 months and in re­cent times, the PNM has said that, de­spite the SoE, the Per­sad-Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment has failed to bring vi­o­lent crime un­der con­trol. (CMC)