Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says To­ba­go is see­ing a ma­jor drop in mur­ders this year com­pared with the same pe­ri­od last year, link­ing the de­cline to stronger po­lice op­er­a­tions and in­creased vis­i­bil­i­ty on the is­land.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in To­ba­go, Gue­var­ro said, “That’s a 300 per cent de­crease in the mur­ders be­tween last year and this year.”

He was re­fer­ring to the mur­der count of 23 in Oc­to­ber last year in com­par­i­son to six mur­ders for the same pe­ri­od this year.

The Com­mis­sion­er said, “This is an al­most 80 per cent or 90 per cent solve rate. Ex­cel­lent job. Com­men­da­tions to them.” He al­so praised of­fi­cers as­signed to the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, adding, “Crime is rel­a­tive­ly down in To­ba­go, with re­spect to mur­ders, be­cause this time last year, in com­par­i­son, it would have been over 20-some­thing mur­ders. So, I would just like to tell them, keep up the good work, and what­ev­er you are do­ing, con­tin­ue to do it.”

While the Com­mis­sion­er did not give spe­cif­ic fig­ures, of­fi­cial crime re­ports show To­ba­go end­ed last year with one of its high­est mur­der to­tals on record.

Gue­var­ro said he is al­ways pre­pared to send ad­di­tion­al man­pow­er from Trinidad to bol­ster op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go, say­ing, “Yes, there is sup­port. We send of­fi­cers from Trinidad to To­ba­go to aug­ment the strength.”

He said a com­bi­na­tion of tar­get­ed pa­trols, in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions, and com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing is con­tribut­ing to what they de­scribe as greater sta­bil­i­ty and pub­lic safe­ty on the is­land.