Po­lice ar­rest­ed 18 peo­ple in east Trinidad as part of Op­er­a­tion Strike Back, an ini­tia­tive launched by new­ly ap­point­ed Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith ear­li­er this month.

In a video clip sent to the me­dia, act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) for the North­ern and East­ern Di­vi­sions, Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob ex­plained that yes­ter­day's ex­er­cise fo­cused on Mal­abar, Ari­ma.

"Mal­abar is ba­si­cal­ly a hous­ing area. How­ev­er, with­in the last few months we saw an es­ca­la­tion of shoot­ings and wound­ings and rob­beries es­pe­cial­ly that of mo­tor ve­hi­cles," he said.

"In or­der to ar­rest the prob­lem in the dis­trict, we launched Op­er­a­tion Strike Back, where our whole in­ten­tion is to take back the com­mu­ni­ty from those of­fend­ers who wish to make life dif­fi­cult for the law abid­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Ja­cob said the ex­er­cis­es are in­tend­ed to raise the pub­lic's trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS.

"We hope a re­duc­tion of fear oc­curs so we can get ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion which we could use to help as­sist with the crime sit­u­a­tion that ex­ists," he said.

The ex­er­cise in­volved 55 po­lice of­fi­cers from spe­cialised po­lice units, in­clud­ing North­ern Di­vi­sion CID, North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, the Or­gan­ised Crime and In­tel­li­gence Unit and Ca­nine Branch.

Be­tween 4 am and 9 am yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers held sev­er­al road­blocks and ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants at the homes of 12 known of­fend­ers.

Of those de­tained, five were for re­cent re­ports of wound­ings and shoot­ings, three for rob­beries and two for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na. Four were held for house­break­ings in Ari­ma, while the oth­ers were ar­rest­ed in La Hor­quet­ta and St Joseph for wound­ing with in­tent and pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion. One il­le­gal firearm was re­cov­ered.

The sus­pects re­mained in cus­tody up to late yes­ter­day and were be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed by de­tec­tives. They are ex­pect­ed to be charged lat­er this week.

"Op­er­a­tion Strike Back con­tin­ues to ful­fil its pur­pose of strik­ing back hard against per­sons bent on com­mit­ting se­ri­ous crimes and on prop­a­gat­ing an at­mos­phere of fear and law­less­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go," the TTPS said in a re­lease.

Since be­ing launched on Sep­tem­ber 1, the project has re­sult­ed in the ar­rests of over 50 of­fend­ers in east Trinidad. It was first in­tro­duced in Bon Air Gar­dens, Arou­ca, where there was a spike in gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders last month.