Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While he was un­able to give his thoughts on whether he felt the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) should have been ex­tend­ed, act­ing pres­i­dent of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), ASP Ish­mael Pitt, is urg­ing those in au­thor­i­ty to be mind­ful of the in­creased de­mand and strain placed on po­lice of­fi­cers.

The SoE was de­clared on Ju­ly 18th, two months af­ter the UNC won the gen­er­al elec­tion, fol­low­ing in­tel­li­gence that crim­i­nal net­works from with­in the na­tion’s pris­ons posed a threat to elect­ed of­fi­cials and law en­force­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment would go to Par­lia­ment on Fri­day to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency for an­oth­er six months, un­til May 2026. (See sto­ry above)

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Pitt de­clined to give his opin­ion on whether the SoE was achiev­ing its ob­jec­tives, not­ing that such re­marks should be made by au­tho­rised of­fi­cials.

He, how­ev­er, not­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers have been called on since late last year to serve when the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, led by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), de­clared a sep­a­rate SoE in re­sponse to an uptick in gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders.

He al­so not­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers were called on to serve dur­ing the April Gen­er­al Elec­tion and again for an­oth­er SoE.

Pitt said he hoped that the re­sources of the TTPS could con­tin­ue to be man­aged with their wel­fare and health in mind.

“I’m say­ing that re­gard­less of what hap­pens go­ing for­ward, we must be con­sid­er­ate of the fact that we’re re­ly­ing on the same body of men and women to get these func­tions go­ing for­ward.

“That man­age­ment in terms of be­ing able to en­sure our of­fi­cers get suf­fi­cient rest and suf­fi­cient leave and en­sur­ing their wel­fare is ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ad­dressed.”

Pitt not­ed that as Oc­to­ber draws to a close, the roll-out of the po­lice Christ­mas/Car­ni­val an­ti-crime plan would be the next ma­jor part of the polic­ing cal­en­dar, which would once again re­quire of­fi­cers to be called out for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods of time as part of crime sup­pres­sion ac­tiv­i­ties.

Pitt said while he has not re­ceived any calls and com­plaints from of­fi­cers over the on­go­ing work­load, he main­tained polic­ing was a stress­ful job, not­ing that the same pool of man­pow­er was be­ing used.

“We are in touch with the ground, and it’s a mat­ter of open knowl­edge that yes, this is what we are faced with, so it more or less adds cred­i­bil­i­ty to what I’m say­ing that re­gard­less of what hap­pens go­ing for­ward, we must be con­sid­er­ate of the fact that we’re re­ly­ing on the same body of men and women to get these func­tions go­ing for­ward.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der for com­ment but was un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.