Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

Po­lice in To­ba­go say more ar­rests are like­ly as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to a se­ries of vi­o­lent in­ci­dents in­volv­ing stu­dents on the is­land.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, five mi­nors ap­peared in court charged with as­sault by beat­ing. Each was grant­ed $20,000 bail with sure­ty, to be paid by their par­ents. Last Wednes­day, an­oth­er five stu­dents faced sim­i­lar charges for sep­a­rate in­ci­dents at two To­ba­go schools ear­li­er this year.

The charges stem from po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to at­tacks at a school in Scar­bor­ough and an­oth­er near Shaw Park Grounds, where stu­dents al­leged­ly as­sault­ed class­mates and, in one case, the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Earl Elie of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion told Guardian Me­dia that po­lice in­tend to pur­sue every re­port of school vi­o­lence rig­or­ous­ly.

“As young as sev­en years old, you can an­swer for your ac­tions. The law per­mits it, and we in­tend to use it,” he said. “School vi­o­lence is be­com­ing over­whelm­ing, and we need to act. This will send a clear mes­sage to the chil­dren.”

Elie added that the po­lice’s ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach, com­bined with the in­tro­duc­tion of of­fi­cers in schools, has al­ready re­duced vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, though re­ports con­tin­ue. He warned that stu­dents in­volved in phys­i­cal as­saults will face le­gal con­se­quences.

While Elie did not spec­i­fy how many more chil­dren may be charged, he said on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions are ex­pect­ed to re­sult in ad­di­tion­al ar­rests in the com­ing days as au­thor­i­ties work to keep To­ba­go’s schools safe.

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said plac­ing po­lice of­fi­cers in schools is a pos­i­tive step if it helps pro­tect teach­ers and stu­dents.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, Ashe said ear­ly feed­back has been en­cour­ag­ing, but the union is still await­ing of­fi­cial da­ta and clear guide­lines from the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry on of­fi­cers’ roles.

He not­ed that the pres­ence of po­lice pro­vides com­fort to par­ents and staff but warned it is on­ly a short-term so­lu­tion. Last­ing change, he said, de­pends on par­ents, teach­ers, and com­mu­ni­ties work­ing to­geth­er to guide chil­dren.

“It takes more than a vil­lage—it takes a world now, be­cause every­thing is glob­al,” Ashe added.