Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has pledged to do what he can to sup­port the fight against crime in To­ba­go, promis­ing to en­sure the is­land’s po­lice of­fi­cers have the re­sources they need to keep res­i­dents safe.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day be­fore the open­ing of Par­lia­ment, Alexan­der said he was im­pressed by how the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the TTPS has been han­dling crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and be­lieves they are on the right track.

“To­ba­go is not go­ing bad at all, eh. Un­der the du­ty com­man­ders and to­geth­er with mem­bers of the THA, To­ba­go is go­ing quite fine. I will just in­cor­po­rate what they want to bring to me and en­sure they have the re­sources so every­body will feel safe and se­cure in To­ba­go too,” he said.

Alexan­der is ex­pect­ed to vis­it To­ba­go in the fol­low­ing week, where he plans to meet with key stake­hold­ers, THA of­fi­cials, and of­fi­cers of the TTPS To­ba­go Di­vi­sion.

Dur­ing the vis­it, the TTPS ex­ec­u­tive will de­liv­er a pre­sen­ta­tion out­lin­ing the is­land’s cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, the chal­lenges faced, re­source needs, and on­go­ing crime-fight­ing strate­gies.

Alexan­der said he plans to give a full ad­dress out­lin­ing his ap­proach to tack­ling crime in To­ba­go, with a fo­cus on re­duc­ing mur­ders and se­ri­ous crimes through tar­get­ed sup­port.

In 2024, To­ba­go record­ed 26 mur­ders—the high­est in its his­to­ry. Among them was the is­land’s first-ever quadru­ple mur­der on Ju­ly 18, when Anslem Dou­glas, Gre­go­ry Ham­let, Samuel Mc­Cain, and Jamo­ki Dun­can were fa­tal­ly shot while play­ing cards at Dou­glas’ home on Black Rock Main Road.

Po­lice linked the killings to an on­go­ing gang war in­volv­ing “sleep­er cells” of gangs based in Trinidad. The in­ci­dent pushed the is­land’s mur­der count to 16 at the time.

By the 18th mur­der, stake­hold­ers and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine had pub­licly called on the gov­ern­ment to step in and do more to ad­dress the vi­o­lence.

In Sep­tem­ber, heads of the To­ba­go di­vi­sion, ACP Col­lis Hazel and Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk, were re­as­signed to Trinidad. They were re­placed by ACP Os­wain Subero and Snr Supt Earl Elie.

Both men pledged to con­tin­ue their pre­de­ces­sors’ work, fo­cus­ing heav­i­ly on com­mu­ni­ty out­reach while tack­ling il­le­gal firearms, drug traf­fick­ing, and gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

So far in 2025, To­ba­go has seen a sharp drop in mur­ders. As of May, on­ly three homi­cides were record­ed, com­pared to a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er toll of sev­en dur­ing the same pe­ri­od last year.

All three mur­ders have been solved. A teenag­er is among those charged for one of the mur­ders.