Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has start­ed to push back on home in­va­sions, nab­bing cul­prits im­me­di­ate­ly—and the de­tec­tion rate is im­prov­ing, says Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

“... And I’m hap­py about that,” Hinds added in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day in re­sponse to UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s queries.

Mark asked, fol­low­ing a num­ber of mur­ders which oc­curred dur­ing Jan­u­ary 27-30, 2023, bring­ing the over­all num­ber of mur­ders in 2023 to over 60 then, what new mea­sures were be­ing tak­en by the TTPS to ad­dress this.

Hinds said the TTPS had im­ple­ment­ed var­i­ous proac­tive strate­gies aimed at as­sist­ing with the de­ter­rence and sup­pres­sion of crim­i­nal vi­o­la­tions, in­clud­ing mur­der.

He not­ed the TTPS’ re­cent­ly im­ple­ment­ed 15-point Vi­o­lent Crime Re­duc­tion Plan, based on pre­ci­sion, in­tel­li­gence, pre­ven­tion, proac­tiv­i­ty and pros­e­cu­tion. It’s fo­cused on all crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties through­out T&T, with par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to “hot spot” ar­eas with high in­ci­dents of vi­o­lent crime.

On how many gangs have been dis­man­tled via the plan, Hinds said the An­ti-Gang law be­ing used isn’t as ro­bust as it ought to be, since Gov­ern­ment didn’t get UNC sup­port to amend along­side it, the bail re­stric­tion law.

He said the TTPS had in­di­cat­ed there’s a re­volv­ing door with peo­ple com­ing be­fore courts, get­ting bail and re­turn­ing to com­mit more crimes. He said with­out those laws, the po­lice are a lit­tle less ef­fec­tive.

But he said the TTPS has An­ti-Gang units in its 10 di­vi­sions.

“And yes—they’ve been mak­ing progress along these 15 ob­jec­tives, and been ar­rest­ing and charg­ing peo­ple, in­clud­ing in very re­cent times un­der the An­ti-Gang law.”

On the de­tec­tion rate against vi­o­lent of­fend­ers fol­low­ing the TTPS’ plan, Hinds gave an ex­am­ple us­ing home in­va­sions.

He said, “The po­lice have been quite suc­cess­ful in deal­ing with them. They’re re­port­ing that in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven ac­tiv­i­ties have led them to peo­ple in­volved.

“Sen­a­tor (Mark) must have no­ticed that in at least the last six or sev­en events of home in­va­sions, the po­lice on every sin­gle oc­ca­sion have been able to in­ter­cept them com­ing away from the scene of the crime, en­gag­ing them; in some cas­es it led to fire­fights and un­for­tu­nate­ly per­sons died.

“But in every sin­gle case, the po­lice have been able to make progress and we’ve no­ticed that, like they did with kid­nap­pings over 2000-2007, they’re be­gin­ning to push back on home in­va­sions.”

On mur­ders, Hinds said the min­istry has been fo­cused on the TTPS’ Homi­cide Bu­reau—im­prov­ing bal­lis­tic, DNA and pathol­o­gy tech­niques, and the Bu­reau is now re­port­ing they’re mak­ing greater progress in solv­ing mur­ders and in­creas­ing their de­tec­tion rates. He said they al­so have a Cold Case Unit and some of the mur­der charges in 2023 con­cern of­fences as far back as 2006.

Hinds said much mon­ey and time is be­ing spent on in­ves­tiga­tive train­ing for of­fi­cers.

“We know cit­i­zens are at a point where they don’t want to say any­thing they may have seen, there­fore, we’re re­ly­ing more than any­thing else on the sci­ence—and yes the de­tec­tion rate is im­prov­ing,”

Hinds al­so said the min­istry pur­chased three jet skis for the Life­guard Ser­vices Unit in April 2021, one of which was de­ployed for use at Mara­cas Beach and Tyri­co Bay, to in­crease life­guard pa­trols. The jet skis are cur­rent­ly used by life­guards for pa­trols along both beach­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly at Tyri­co on week­ends and hol­i­days. He said the Tyri­co Bay life­guard post is in the process of be­ing up­grad­ed and the min­istry will be en­gag­ing in a beach safe­ty aware­ness pro­gramme lat­er in 2023.