SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds has con­demned the fiery protests over the po­lice-in­volved killing of Me­shach Gib­son.

Protests broke out on Mon­day at mul­ti­ple points along the North Coast Road, from Mara­cas to Blan­chisseuse and along Sad­dle Road in Mar­aval, over Gib­son’s death.

His rel­a­tives, friends and neigh­bours claim Gib­son was killed by po­lice while the of­fi­cers in­volved say Gib­son and an­oth­er man shot at them and they re­turned fire.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Hinds said he was well aware of the protests, as act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob kept him in­formed through­out the day.

As he com­mend­ed the TTPS, Fire Ser­vice and the T&T Reg­i­ment for en­sur­ing the block­ages were cleared, Hinds said he has been as­sured there will be con­stant pa­trols to stop fur­ther protest ac­tion.

“They have as­sured me as Min­is­ter that they are very present and they in­tend to main­tain a pres­ence on that stretch of road­way, from the Mar­aval to Blan­chisseuse area on a per­sis­tent ba­sis, just to en­sure that they re­main pass­able and to en­sure the pub­lic can use that road safe­ly when go­ing about their law­ful af­fairs,” Hinds said.

As he con­demned the protests, Hinds said that type of ac­tion was com­plete­ly un­nec­es­sary.

“There are av­enues for peo­ple to ven­ti­late any griev­ances they may have…I think the ev­i­dence is there that when po­lice are in­volved in ac­tiv­i­ty, their con­duct is sub­ject to in­ves­ti­ga­tions, dis­ci­pline from their se­niors, it is sub­ject to the at­ten­tion of the PCA and cer­tain­ly, it is sub­ject to the at­ten­tion of the court,” he said.

Hinds cit­ed the nu­mer­ous suc­cess­ful civ­il cas­es against po­lice in the courts, say­ing those were ev­i­dence that of­fi­cers were be­ing held to ac­count. He said those who be­lieve they have been wronged by po­lice should gath­er their ev­i­dence and make a re­port to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty.

And for those who still want to protest, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter had this warn­ing, “I don’t see the need for that but some peo­ple do, but when they do that, there are risks and of course, if you are caught, you can face pros­e­cu­tion and pun­ish­ment by the court if you are found guilty of that sort of thing.”

He said the TTPS and the Reg­i­ment will do all they can to stop fu­ture protests along the North Coast Road.

“I am aware they are en­gaged in con­stant mon­i­tor­ing and pa­trols and have tak­en to some el­e­ments of the hill­side in or­der to en­sure that the path­ways are kept safe,” Hinds said.