Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

As thou­sands of rev­ellers hit the streets of Scar­bor­ough for J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions to­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin is warn­ing the pub­lic to avoid con­fronta­tions.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Mar­tin said the po­lice’s pri­or­i­ty is the preser­va­tion of life, the main­te­nance of pub­lic or­der and the safe­ty of every­one par­tic­i­pat­ing in the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Over 100 ad­di­tion­al of­fi­cers have been de­ployed by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to sup­ple­ment the lo­cal force as 60,000 vis­i­tors are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive on the is­land for the car­ni­val, run­ning from Oc­to­ber 30- No­vem­ber 1.

“Let me be clear: no con­fronta­tion is worth the loss of a life. We want every­one to en­joy To­ba­go Car­ni­val, cel­e­brate re­spon­si­bly and re­turn home safe­ly,” she said.

Mar­tin ap­pealed to the pub­lic to ex­er­cise re­straint, act re­spon­si­bly and co-op­er­ate with law en­force­ment dur­ing the car­ni­val.

“Do not con­front, threat­en, ob­struct or phys­i­cal­ly en­gage po­lice of­fi­cers in the ex­e­cu­tion of their law­ful du­ties. If you are dis­sat­is­fied with the con­duct of an of­fi­cer, there are es­tab­lished mech­a­nisms through which com­plaints can be made and in­ves­ti­gat­ed,” she said.

Mar­tin added of­fi­cers are ex­pect­ed to act pro­fes­sion­al­ly, ex­er­cise sound judg­ment and use force on­ly where law­ful, nec­es­sary and pro­por­tion­ate.

She al­so ac­knowl­edged Wednes­day night’s po­lice-in­volved killing of Hasani Bobb, 20, in Pa­tience Hill. Bobb’s rel­a­tives have dis­put­ed the po­lice ver­sion of the in­ci­dent, in­sist­ing he would not point a gun at po­lice.

“It is im­por­tant that the in­ves­tiga­tive process be al­lowed to pro­ceed in­de­pen­dent­ly, thor­ough­ly and with­out in­ter­fer­ence. We will not spec­u­late on the cir­cum­stances or pre­judge its find­ings,” she said.

Ja­maican Spice en­joys To­ba­go Car­ni­val

Mean­while, To­ba­go Car­ni­val has come alive with fete lovers en­joy­ing three days of cul­ture, mas and rev­el­ry.

Ja­maican dance­hall star Grace La­toya Hamil­ton, al­so known as Spice, is al­so on the is­land for her first To­ba­go Car­ni­val and wast­ed lit­tle time.

Af­ter ar­riv­ing at the new air­port east ter­mi­nal on Thurs­day night, Spice was en­joy­ing her­self hours lat­er at the pop­u­lar Stink and Dut­ty par­ty at Pa­rade Grounds in Ba­co­let.

“I love you, To­ba­go. I don’t wan­na leave,” she said in a video post­ed on­line by Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett.

Five sail­ings on the seabridge yes­ter­day brought over 3,400 pas­sen­gers on all four ves­sels.

Trinida­di­an and first-time To­ba­go Car­ni­val vis­i­tor Patrice Dug­gins be­lieves To­ba­go Car­ni­val is un­like any oth­er.

She said the fes­ti­val is on its way to be­ing among the up­per ech­e­lons of re­gion­al car­ni­val.

An­oth­er Tri­ni vis­i­tor who came aboard the APT James said he nev­er miss­es To­ba­go Car­ni­val, par­tic­u­lar­ly the night mas to­day in Scar­bor­ough.

“Come and ex­pe­ri­ence it; that is the on­ly way to know for sure if you love it. This is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I hard­ly play mas in Trinidad, but you see To­ba­go? It very re­laxed and is a very nice time. The peo­ple nice and the vibes nice,” he said.

So­ca artiste Re­bec­ca Prince, al­so known as Bec­ca P, said she is grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ties the car­ni­val af­fords young artistes.