JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, June 1, 2025

800-strong security force for Carnival festivities

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
835 days ago
20230216

As thou­sands of na­tion­als and vis­i­tors alike re­turn to the streets of T&T this year for Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, fol­low­ing a two-year hia­tus due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is as­sur­ing that all mea­sures are in place to en­sure the safe­ty of every­one.

In an­nounc­ing an over 800-strong unit of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to be de­ployed for the fes­tiv­i­ties yes­ter­day, Car­ni­val Gold Com­man­der, ACP Col­lis Hazel, said 300 sol­diers will be part of the show of force to en­sure law and or­der pre­vails.

Seat­ed next to the new­ly-mint­ed Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher dur­ing the week­ly TTPS me­dia brief­ing at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Hazel proud­ly de­clared, “We are ready. We have done our home­work and we are pre­pared to ad­dress the chal­lenges and all the is­sues we can mit­i­gate in treat­ing with Car­ni­val 2023.”

In ad­di­tion to the TTPS and De­fence Force, of­fi­cers from var­i­ous arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty will be bol­ster­ing the re­sponse team, in­clud­ing the Fire Ser­vice; Prison Ser­vice; Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice; Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion; Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice; and pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

Seek­ing to re­as­sure the pub­lic, Hazel said, “You can ex­pect var­i­ous types of se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols on Car­ni­val days. We will be there, out and about. On foot, on mo­bile, aer­i­al pa­trols, on the sea, on bi­cy­cles, on mo­tor­bikes...even drones.”

Ap­peal­ing to par­tic­i­pants and on­look­ers to be re­spon­si­ble as they en­joy what has been dubbed the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals,” Hazel said they were ex­pect­ing over 27,000 peo­ple to ar­rive via Caribbean Air­lines by this week­end—and a fur­ther 1,500 vis­i­tors via the Epic Cruise.

He as­sured, “We are pre­pared in or­der to treat with our cit­i­zens and our tourists.”

Hazel qui­et­ly boast­ed of an in­ci­dent-free pe­ri­od dur­ing re­cent weeks, in which 37,049 ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers on 15 vis­it­ing cruise lines vis­it­ed and left the coun­try with­out any even­tu­al­i­ty.

The pub­lic was re­mind­ed to con­tact the TTPS via 555 or 999 to re­port in­ci­dents, which will be re-di­rect­ed to the Com­mand Cen­tre on Car­ni­val days.

Hazel re­mind­ed that the glass bot­tle ban is be­ing en­forced and ap­pealed to per­sons to com­ply.

For mo­torists tak­ing a chance to park in non-des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas, Hazel said all wrecked ve­hi­cles can be re­trieved at the Li­cens­ing Of­fice on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. He al­so re­mind­ed that spe­cial per­mits were nec­es­sary for per­sons want­i­ng to come in­to the city cen­tres to par­tic­i­pate in the cel­e­bra­tions.

Mean­while, CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher ap­pealed to fe­male mas­quer­aders to re­sist the lure of win­ing on po­lice of­fi­cers as they par­tic­i­pate in the fes­tiv­i­ties.

As the first fe­male head in charge of T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, she is con­fi­dent her per­son­nel will “not re­turn a wine” should they find them­selves hav­ing to fend off lewd and sug­ges­tive danc­ing by scant­i­ly-clad women who find it dar­ing and/or chal­leng­ing to wine on uni­formed of­fi­cers.

Urg­ing all mas­quer­aders to ex­er­cise a lev­el of self-re­spect dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions, the soft-spo­ken CoP ad­vised, “It is dis­re­spect­ful and un-wel­comed.”

Open­ing yes­ter­day’s pro­ceed­ings with a word of grat­i­tude for those re­spon­si­ble for her ap­point­ment, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “I want to pub­licly thank the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, the Gov­ern­ment and the mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion for giv­ing me this op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead the TTPS as CoP.”

She pledged to pro­vide im­proved polic­ing ser­vices to T&T.

“What I will try to do is to pro­vide a po­lice ser­vice that is ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing its man­date, is com­pe­tent and able to man­age all its chal­lenges—all the ur­gent and re­cent chal­lenges. An or­gan­i­sa­tion that is ag­ile, ef­fi­cient and pro­fes­sion­al. And all this will be in keep­ing with our mis­sion in part­ner­ship with the cit­i­zens of T&T,” she said.

“A part­ner­ship that will en­sure ef­fi­cient, ef­fec­tive polic­ing ser­vices through fo­cused lead­er­ship and pro­fes­sion­al, con­sis­tent­ly high stan­dards of polic­ing. And there is no bet­ter time than now for us to work in part­ner­ship, as we in­vite na­tion­als from all over the world to en­joy our car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher, Hazel and ACP, Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion, Win­ston Ma­haraj, al­so urged those think­ing of en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal­i­ty dur­ing the Car­ni­val to “think twice.”

They said the TTPS has al­ready start­ed tar­get­ed strikes against known of­fend­ers who may be think­ing of dis­rupt­ing the rev­el­ry.

Ma­haraj al­so ap­pealed to the pub­lic to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice that can lead to the ap­pre­hen­sion of per­sons en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

He called on the pub­lic to be aware and sus­pi­cious of their sur­round­ings in or­der to re­main safe.

He al­so urged mas­quer­aders to re­mem­ber there is life af­ter Car­ni­val, and that they should main­tain re­spect at all times for them­selves, their fam­i­ly and the law.

Se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems were al­so said to be in place at the na­tion’s beach­es for both the Car­ni­val and cool-down pe­ri­ods on Ash Wednes­day and even there­after.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored