SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

As Day One of the stay-at-home mea­sures on non-es­sen­tial ser­vices be­gins, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says if you choose to leave your home to go to the su­per­mar­ket, to pur­chase a news­pa­per or to ex­er­cise, the po­lice have no au­thor­i­ty to ar­rest you.

You can be ar­rest­ed if you con­gre­gate in a group of more than ten peo­ple or open a non-es­sen­tial ser­vice for busi­ness.

Over the past two days, there has been some con­fu­sion over whether the lock­down means peo­ple can­not leave their homes at all.

On Fri­day Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said that any­one who is out­side from Mon­day will be re­quired to in­form the po­lice why they have left their homes if they are pulled over.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said al­though new Pub­lic Health reg­u­la­tions have been im­ple­ment­ed, po­lice of­fi­cers have not been grant­ed any ad­di­tion­al pow­ers or au­thor­i­ty.

“The TTPS has not been giv­en any ex­tra pow­ers or ex­tra au­thor­i­ty. I have to en­sure that the TTPS works with­in the law-noth­ing more or noth­ing less there is no ex­tra au­thor­i­ty that has been giv­en that al­lows the po­lice ser­vice to do any­thing oth­er than what we can. New reg­u­la­tions have been set in the pub­lic health or­di­nance where it can state if you breach these reg­u­la­tions, you can be ar­rest­ed,” Grif­fith said.

On Sat­ur­day, Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia that mem­bers of the pub­lic can ex­er­cise in pub­lic while the stay-at-home or­der re­mains in ef­fect once they do not ex­er­cise in groups.

Lat­er in the day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is­sued a press re­lease ti­tled, “Stay at home means no ex­er­cise out­doors in pub­lic spaces.”

The re­lease stat­ed that the pub­lic should lim­it be­ing out­side of their homes un­less they are part of the es­sen­tial staff of es­sen­tial busi­ness­es or are go­ing to con­duct an es­sen­tial ac­tiv­i­ty.

“The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­es that as an­nounced on Fri­day 27 March 2020, the Gov­ern­ment is re­quest­ing that per­sons do not en­gage in ex­er­cise out­side of their homes in pub­lic spaces. The med­ical ex­perts have ad­vised that per­sons ex­er­cis­ing out­side of their homes in pub­lic spaces car­ry and in­crease the risk of spread­ing COVID-19,” the re­lease said.

Yes­ter­day, Grif­fith sought to clar­i­fy what the min­istry’s re­lease meant, say­ing, “You would have seen a me­dia re­lease re­cent­ly by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ask­ing per­sons not to ex­er­cise- ask­ing and telling per­sons that they should not is dif­fer­ent from telling per­sons that they can­not - can­not is when the po­lice get in­volved and we can then en­force the law.”

He said the re­quests are an ap­peal for good sense to pre­vail among the pub­lic and re­it­er­at­ed his call for the pub­lic to ad­here to the re­quests of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er of­fi­cials.

“The more per­sons stay in­doors, the bet­ter and faster this sit­u­a­tion can be rec­ti­fied, every time one per­son is af­fect­ed, it pro­vides a domi­no ef­fect that will make this sit­u­a­tion last much longer than it should, which is why the Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ues to plead with per­sons to ad­here to the re­quire­ments from mid­night tonight to stay in­doors as much as pos­si­ble un­less of course, you pro­vide an es­sen­tial task or you in­volved in es­sen­tial busi­ness,” Grif­fith said.