In an­nounc­ing the move yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence point­ing to the for­ma­tion of an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate specif­i­cal­ly look­ing to tar­get se­nior mem­bers of the State forced the de­ci­sion.

For­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son says while there may be some mer­it for the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to de­clare a State of Emer­gency (SoE) to com­bat pow­er­ful un­der­world fig­ures, it should main­tain con­sis­tent pres­sure on these crim­i­nals on a more con­sis­tent ba­sis.

His stance is a sharp con­trast to the po­si­tion he took when the last SoE was called in De­cem­ber 2024.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris says the new State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­clared yes­ter­day morn­ing deals a harsh blow to To­ba­go’s al­ready strug­gling tourism sec­tor. He be­lieves the is­land, which is see­ing a re­duc­tion in crime, has been thrown in­to what he de­scribes as a storm.

The To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) says To­ba­go is still open, safe, and ready to wel­come vis­i­tors, de­spite the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency yes­ter­day.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Prime Min­is­ter, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al have each pre­sent­ed con­flict­ing nar­ra­tives sur­round­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE), leav­ing cit­i­zens un­cer­tain about its true pur­pose.

Lead­ers of the coun­try’s ma­jor busi­ness groups say they are in full sup­port of the State of Emer­gency, which was de­clared yes­ter­day. They say they are an­tic­i­pat­ing min­i­mal dis­rup­tions to com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

Over the past two decades, Trinidad and To­ba­go has ex­pe­ri­enced mul­ti­ple states of emer­gency (SoEs), main­ly trig­gered by in­creas­es in vi­o­lent crime and, more re­cent­ly, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

With a State of Emer­gency now of­fi­cial­ly in ef­fect, at­tor­ney Criston J Williams says le­gal ac­tion is on the ta­ble, as he blasts what he de­scribes as years of sys­temic fail­ures in the coun­try’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Cur­tis Williams, says crim­i­nals at­tempt­ing to run from the po­lice dur­ing the State of Emer­gency in Trinidad may at­tempt to es­cape to To­ba­go.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day ho­n­oured 28 of­fi­cers for their ef­forts in re­mov­ing over 30 il­le­gal firearms and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion off the na­tion’s streets dur­ing the past month.

A Laven­tille-based gen­er­al con­tract­ing com­pa­ny will have to wait un­til next month to learn if it can con­tin­ue its law­suit over a move by the cur­rent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-led Gov­ern­ment to ter­mi­nate it and over 300 fel­low CEPEP con­trac­tors.