The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has ex­pressed con­cern about the in­crease in fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings since the de­c­la­ra­tion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The PCA is­sued a state­ment fol­low­ing re­ports in­di­cat­ing that since the SoE was de­clared, five men have been killed dur­ing con­fronta­tions with po­lice.

“In the five days since the state of emer­gency has com­menced, there have been five in­ci­dents of po­lice-in­volved fa­tal shoot­ings. The PCA is ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing these oc­cur­rences and is com­mit­ted to thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing each in­ci­dent, in ac­cor­dance with its leg­isla­tive man­date,” the Au­thor­i­ty said.

“The PCA re­mains stead­fast in its role as an in­de­pen­dent over­sight body and con­tin­ues to call for ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and ad­her­ence to the rule of law in all po­lice in­ter­ac­tions with mem­bers of the pub­lic; par­tic­u­lar­ly in pe­ri­ods of height­ened se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions,” the PCA re­lease stat­ed.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der has stat­ed that while all threats must be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly, threats di­rect­ed specif­i­cal­ly at na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers car­ried dif­fer­ent im­pli­ca­tions.

“These of­fi­cers are per­sons who have cho­sen to pro­tect and serve and de­fend your coun­try, while oth­ers chose a life of crime. It doesn’t add up,” Alexan­der said.

When asked if he had con­cerns about the num­ber of peo­ple killed in con­fronta­tions with law en­force­ment over the last six days since the SoE was de­clared, the min­is­ter said he had none.

Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander speaks at the commissioning of sixty-seven Toyota RAV4 SUV police vehicles at the Police Training Academy St James in June 2025.

ROGER JACOB

He al­so chal­lenged crit­ics of the State’s pre-emp­tive law en­force­ment ac­tions.

“Are they say­ing that we should wait un­til the threats have been car­ried out first, be­fore we should act? Should we wait un­til per­sons have been in­jured or hurt or even killed?” Min­is­ter Alexan­der said.

“Or should we seek af­ter those who (are) mak­ing the threat be­fore they do any­thing that can en­dan­ger or harm law-abid­ing cit­i­zens?”

The Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter as­sert­ed that the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion is to “de­fend this na­tion by any means nec­es­sary”.

Min­is­ter Alexan­der al­so said he found it cu­ri­ous that con­cern was be­ing raised about the num­ber of per­sons killed in con­fronta­tion with law en­force­ment, and yet there was what he de­scribed as “si­lence” when mur­der rates spiked over the last decade.

“For the past ten years, mur­ders af­ter mur­ders af­ter mur­ders. Some­times we saw 80 in a month,” he said. “Yet when con­front­ed by law en­force­ment, there is an uptick. The of­fi­cers will re­spond when they are con­front­ed by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments who, be­cause of their be­hav­iour, con­tin­ue to in­vite their own deaths.”

In re­sponse to pos­si­ble crit­i­cism from over­sight bod­ies, Min­is­ter Alexan­der said:

“They can say what they want. Tell me, who [were] the ones threat­ened? Was it not po­lice and prison of­fi­cers? Was it any oth­er body? Peo­ple nev­er know it till they feel it. And right now, the ones un­der pres­sure are the po­lice and prison of­fi­cers. They are the ones who are di­rect­ly in the line of fire. Who are un­der threat. So, as long as law en­force­ment con­tin­ues to act with­in the lim­its of the law, they will have the full sup­port of this Gov­ern­ment to de­fend and pro­tect them­selves.” —(CMC)