SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Matthew Pe­ters, pres­i­dent of the Mal­oney Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, has con­demned the 9 pm to 5 am cur­few, claim­ing that des­ig­nat­ing their com­mu­ni­ty a closed area treats res­i­dents like guinea pigs to test the reach of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Pe­ters said the cur­few has ex­tend­ed far be­yond re­strict­ing their move­ments, as some res­i­dents have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dropped calls and poor in­ter­net ser­vice.

Oth­ers have al­so been de­nied per­mits, and busi­ness­es have suf­fered sales loss­es.

“We are try­ing to cope.”

Matthew said they are seek­ing an ur­gent meet­ing with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to raise their con­cerns.

Last Tues­day, the Mal­oney Build­ings Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment was the first com­mu­ni­ty to be de­clared a closed area un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act 2026, due to es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence.

“We un­der­stand the need for the po­lice pres­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty. But the way it was han­dled and com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the res­i­dents has left a bit­ter taste in the res­i­dents’ mouths.”

The im­po­si­tion of the cur­few, Pe­ters said, caught them off guard.

“It hap­pened so fast and quick. It felt like they want­ed to use a par­tic­u­lar dis­trict as a guinea pig to lay out the ZOSO bill to see if it can work.”

He said he felt the law was be­ing test­ed on their com­mu­ni­ty.

Serv­ing as pres­i­dent for three years, Pe­ters said he had no is­sue with the po­lice pro­tect­ing the res­i­dents from crim­i­nals and mis­cre­ants.

How­ev­er, he said the gun­man be­hind Mon­day’s shoot­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty’s carpark, which went vi­ral, should have faced the full force of the law rather than sub­ject­ing the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty to pun­ish­ment by re­strict­ing their move­ments for eight hours each night.

“It’s just un­for­tu­nate that the in­ci­dent hap­pened. I find like some­thing else could have been done oth­er than just hav­ing us un­der lock­down. Mal­oney has good peo­ple. Not every­one is bad.”

The Mal­oney Build­ings Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment has 21 build­ings.

Each build­ing has 62 apart­ments.

Pe­ters said the coun­cil has re­ceived nu­mer­ous com­plaints from res­i­dents who stat­ed they had dif­fi­cul­ty plac­ing and re­ceiv­ing cell­phone calls.

He won­dered whether jam­mers and grab­bers were be­ing used to dis­rupt calls since the cur­few went in­to ef­fect.

“I tried to call my mom, and I didn’t get through. Peo­ple have prob­lems con­tact­ing their loved ones. We have a lot of peo­ple com­plain­ing about it.”

In ad­di­tion, Pe­ters said res­i­dents al­so ex­pe­ri­enced poor in­ter­net ser­vice.

While Pe­ters said the coun­cil is will­ing to work with the two mi­cro-po­lice units es­tab­lished in their com­mu­ni­ty, he said every­one has been abid­ing by the law.

“We just want this cur­few to end soon,” Pe­ters said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to of­fi­cials at Dig­i­cel and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go to find out if there were any is­sues with the ser­vice to the area but we are yet to re­ceive any re­sponse.