JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

PM calls on citizens for help to stop brazen criminals

by

Andrea Perez-Sobers
556 days ago
20231231

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter a spate of vi­o­lent crimes over the last cou­ple of days and mount­ing pub­lic pres­sure, Head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ad­mit­ted that the sta­tis­tics are not sat­is­fac­to­ry, but the coun­try re­mains fo­cused on get­ting bet­ter re­sults at every turn.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Dr Row­ley stat­ed the brazen­ness of the crim­i­nals is root­ed in a be­lief that they will not be ap­pre­hend­ed and even if ap­pre­hend­ed they have noth­ing to fear from the ju­di­cial sys­tem.

He ex­plained that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty plans and ex­e­cutes strate­gies to pre­vent these truths from pre­vail­ing and that the crim­i­nals are wrong on both counts.

Last week, the coun­try was faced with a quadru­ple mur­der in St Au­gus­tine, the kid­nap­ping of an El So­cor­ro busi­ness­woman, and the killings of a preg­nant woman and teenag­er in Ari­ma. Yes­ter­day, there was a dou­ble mur­der in St Au­gus­tine while To­ba­go was rocked by an­oth­er killing.

The crime sit­u­a­tion has thrown com­mu­ni­ties in T&T in­to a tail­spin and crime ex­perts are call­ing for se­ri­ous ac­tion–an all-out war on crime and crim­i­nals and strength­en­ing of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus.

From De­cem­ber 1-30, the mur­der toll stood at 47, and for last year from De­cem­ber 1-29, the num­ber stood at 46.

Dr Row­ley said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meets fair­ly reg­u­lar­ly, takes cer­tain de­ci­sions, and has cer­tain op­er­a­tions in place.

The PM said de­mands are be­ing made on the po­lice and the wider se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices. He added, how­ev­er, that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices are be­ing con­stant­ly re­sourced to keep them avail­able and ef­fec­tive.

Row­ley out­lined that on­ly re­cent­ly the Gov­ern­ment ap­proved the ad­di­tion, at re­quest, in emer­gency mode, of 50 new ve­hi­cles to the pa­trol fleet of the Po­lice Ser­vice and the De­fence Force.

He fur­ther called on cit­i­zens to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“We are con­tin­u­ous­ly en­gaged in de­tect­ing and man­ag­ing the mil­lions of rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and the thou­sands of firearms that are cir­cu­lat­ing with­in the coun­try. To this end, we ap­peal to the pub­lic to as­sist in this fight, to elim­i­nate these fre­quent out­rages and gun crimes, in gen­er­al, by pro­vid­ing as much in­for­ma­tion as you can, so that the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vice per­son­nel can get ahead of the crim­i­nals be­fore they cal­lous­ly add to the death and de­struc­tion that a hand­ful of cit­i­zens wreak up­on the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion.

“If you know some­thing, un­der­take to say some­thing. The pro­tec­tive ser­vices will con­tin­ue to go af­ter the weapons and their han­dlers but their jobs can be great­ly en­hanced by in­creased in­for­ma­tion streams from the sphere of pub­lic spirit­ed­ness.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added that the pro­tec­tion of so­ci­ety is a 24-hour sev­en-days-a-week ex­er­cise which will re­main the du­ty and fo­cus of the State as the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to con­front all those who choose vi­o­lent crime as their con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion’s chal­lenges.

In Oc­to­ber, Row­ley met with mem­bers of his Gov­ern­ment and the heads of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and T&T De­fence Force.

Row­ley had a sim­i­lar meet­ing on Ju­ly 16, where he met act­ing Chief of De­fence Staff Brig Gen Dex­ter Fran­cis, the di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, and the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the TTPS.

Crime ex­perts re­spond

‘All-out war on crime need­ed’

Guardian Me­dia spoke to sev­er­al crim­i­nal ex­perts who said the Prime Min­is­ter should have de­clared an all-out war on crime.

Weigh­ing in on the is­sue, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira, not­ing the fail­ure of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, said the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­tin­ued re­liance on cit­i­zens’ in­volve­ment as a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy may not be ef­fec­tive.

“The thing that struck me is that the state­ment is bipo­lar and I say the Prime Min­is­ter is un­der in­creas­ing pres­sure from the po­lit­i­cal par­ty fi­nanciers, be­cause you know we have an elec­tion com­ing up,” he point­ed out.

How­ev­er, Figueira be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment must strength­en sus­tain­able sys­tems to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty.

“If you have in­sti­tu­tions of state that are not fit for pur­pose, how can we work with the po­lice to solve the prob­lem? All the il­lic­it weapons en­ter­ing the coun­try is not our do­ing, it’s the fail­ure of Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the fail­ure of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus that is where the prob­lems lie, and you must recog­nise that.”

‘Strate­gic plan­ning crit­i­cal’

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah said an all-out war on crime was need­ed, in­cor­po­rat­ing strate­gic plan­ning, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, and tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions. He said it was es­sen­tial as the fu­ture of the na­tion de­pends on a unit­ed ef­fort to re­claim its rep­u­ta­tion as a safe and vi­brant des­ti­na­tion.

Heer­ah not­ed that iden­ti­fy­ing and pri­ori­tis­ing spe­cif­ic tar­gets is para­mount in dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works.

“A fo­cus on un­der­stand­ing the dy­nam­ics of gangs, dis­rupt­ing their ac­tiv­i­ties, and seiz­ing their fi­nan­cial re­sources is es­sen­tial. Set­ting achiev­able goals with­in a de­fined time­line will en­able a more ef­fec­tive and mea­sur­able re­sponse to the pre­vail­ing crime cri­sis.”

Heer­ah said ac­knowl­edg­ing the strain on man­pow­er re­sources and low morale with­in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies was cru­cial.

He said it re­quires a holis­tic ap­proach, in­clud­ing the al­lo­ca­tion of ad­e­quate re­sources and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of sup­port­ive mea­sures.

“The spi­ralling crime sit­u­a­tion has struck pan­ic and fear in­to the hearts of the cit­i­zen­ry. We have to act fast and bring this sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol or we will sink in­to an abyss of fur­ther de­spair,” he added.

‘Lack of de­ter­rent ef­fect’

Mean­while, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad in­di­cat­ed that the way crim­i­nals are be­com­ing more and more brazen, two fac­tors come to mind very read­i­ly.

“One has to do with the lack of de­ter­rent ef­fect of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. And this stems from the low de­tec­tion rates. And the mes­sage that it sends to would-be of­fend­ers is that there is a very, very low to neg­li­gi­ble like­li­hood that they would be caught. And if you feel that you’re not go­ing to be caught, then the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem isn’t go­ing to de­ter you from com­mit­ting crimes,” Seep­er­sad dis­closed.

‘Row­ley’s state­ment shows an ad­mit­tance of fail­ure’

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith said Row­ley’s state­ment shows an ad­mit­tance of fail­ure and the in­abil­i­ty to deal with crime.

“It al­so ex­pos­es why he has been in­ef­fec­tive in ad­dress­ing the scourge of crime. Lack­ing any form or struc­ture, any plans or poli­cies, he is once again ask­ing the pub­lic for help in fight­ing crime,” he said.

The for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er said this was in line with the PM’s style of gov­er­nance since he has now “laid the ground­work to blame cit­i­zens for his gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to deal with crime be­cause cit­i­zens are not do­ing what he asks.”

Grif­fith said when he was po­lice com­mis­sion­er, he put sys­tems in place to peg back crim­i­nals and that is what is re­quired.

He said sad­ly this is not be­ing adopt­ed by the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment.

‘PM’s state­ment vague’

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Shad­ow Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said that the PM’s state­ment was point­less, ob­scured, and vague, typ­i­cal­ly with­out a plan of ac­tion to tame the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty cir­cum­stances.

“There is an even more crit­i­cal need for high-tech mon­i­tor­ing of un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cles out­fit­ted with blue lights and sirens. Stiff penal­ties should be im­posed for fail­ure to ac­count for the where­abouts of those ve­hi­cles and any unau­tho­rised in­stal­la­tion of these se­cu­ri­ty de­vices on any ve­hi­cle,” Mooni­lal sug­gest­ed.

‘Act de­ci­sive­ly’

Op­po­si­tion MP for Ch­agua­nas West Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said the PM’s state­ment that the best gift a shoot­er can re­ceive is the si­lence about their iden­ti­ty shame­ful­ly places blame on the cit­i­zens of T&T, im­ply­ing a fail­ure to do the work of his own Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“I urge the Prime Min­is­ter to rise from his com­pla­cen­cy and act de­ci­sive­ly to ad­dress this dire sit­u­a­tion. Sea­son­al greet­ings are in­suf­fi­cient; what we re­quire is a com­pre­hen­sive plan, im­me­di­ate ac­tion, and a clear com­mit­ment to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our cit­i­zens,” Ram­bal­ly stressed.

Cit­i­zens con­cerned

Re­spond­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment which was al­so post­ed on Face­book, cit­i­zens ex­pressed fear and con­cern.

One user said “Words aren’t ENOUGH, Prime Min­is­ter we need AC­TION. Too many of­fi­cers are sit­ting in sta­tions. Our taxed dol­lars are pay­ing them to work not to be re­laxed as though they are home.”

An­oth­er said, “Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley you can’t be se­ri­ous­ly ask­ing peo­ple to give in­for­ma­tion about the gang­sters and their op­er­a­tion in this coun­try, first­ly I must be giv­en a Firearm Users Li­cence (FUL) to be able to light them up and af­ter that, we will con­tin­ue from there, but for now I see noth­ing, I hear noth­ing and I know noth­ing.”

A Face­book user added, “Make haste the crim­i­nal el­e­ment is cross­ing over too many in­no­cent peo­ple are dy­ing. Long time ago we could have said most crimes are gang-re­lat­ed. Now too many in­no­cent peo­ple who are just go­ing about their lives are tar­get­ed just be­cause they live in an area that calls on cer­tain num­bers to re­vise the firearms laws and give us cit­i­zens le­gal pro­tec­tion with train­ing in our hands to pro­tect our­selves and our loved ones.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored