An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has dis­missed spec­u­la­tion that the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) is be­ing used as a crime-fight­ing tool.

How­ev­er, he at­trib­uted sharp de­clines in sev­er­al cat­e­gories of crime, in­clud­ing homi­cides and kid­nap­pings, to the con­tin­ued de­ten­tion of peo­ple cur­rent­ly in cus­tody.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, the top cop al­so ad­dressed last Fri­day’s pub­lic un­ease and pan­ic fu­elled by ru­mours of im­pend­ing strikes by the US on Venezuela, which led to both sol­diers and po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing called to im­me­di­ate du­ty.

He said, “Sim­i­lar­ly to the first time when the SoE was called on Ju­ly 18 and leave was re­strict­ed, like­wise when the ex­ten­sion was grant­ed, I took a de­ci­sion to al­so re­strict leave so that the po­lice can prop­er­ly pre­pare for their op­er­a­tional man­date dur­ing the ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od. But for some strange rea­son, I don’t want to say mis­chief; it was bandied about as some ne­far­i­ous sce­nario in the pub­lic.”

Re­gard­ing the State of Emer­gency, the com­mis­sion­er said a to­tal of 156 Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) had been hand­ed to the TTPS since the SoE be­gan, with 98 ex­e­cut­ed and 58 still out­stand­ing.

Ad­dress­ing ques­tions as to how many peo­ple held un­der de­ten­tion or­ders have been charged, the Com­mis­sion­er ex­plained, “It is an or­der to pre­vent some­one from do­ing some­thing that is in­im­i­cal to pub­lic safe­ty.

“It doesn’t mean that they com­mit­ted a crime. It means there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence placed be­fore the min­is­ter to grant a pre­ven­tive or­der to place this per­son in de­ten­tion for the pur­pose of pre­vent­ing them from do­ing some­thing.”

Gue­var­ro un­der­scored, “The PDOs are in ef­fect from the mo­ment they are ex­e­cut­ed un­til the end of the SoE. So it is not to say it’s a blank cheque ... at some point in time it will end. And at some point in time, the PDO will ex­pire. At that point in time, we will treat with the mat­ter as we see fit.”

He said the de­ten­tion or­ders have had an im­pact on crime.

“With just 85 per­sons be­ing tak­en out of the sys­tem and placed safe­ly aside, we have a 42 per cent de­crease in homi­cides. We have a 19 per cent de­crease in vi­o­lent crimes. An 11 per cent de­crease in oth­er se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes. A 28 per cent in lar­ce­ny of mo­tor ve­hi­cles; wound­ings and shoot­ings are down from 1,508 last year to 980 this year. Sex­u­al of­fences down, kid­nap­pings down, rob­beries down, break­ing of­fences down, and gen­er­al lar­ce­ny is down. That is 85 peo­ple.”

He asked, “What if we had caught the whole 156 we want­ed? What do you think will hap­pen to the crime sta­tis­tics?”

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin said 23 peo­ple have so far been charged un­der the SoE reg­u­la­tions, with gen­er­al ar­rests stand­ing at 3,538, of which 2,136 peo­ple had been charged.