Se­cu­ri­ty at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port has re­ceived a no­tice­able up­grade as a joint team of heav­i­ly armed tac­ti­cal po­lice and snif­fer dogs has been de­ployed to pre­vent any up­surge in crime at the fa­cil­i­ty.

The ini­tia­tive was an­nounced dur­ing a brief launch at the air­port’s VIP Lounge yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, where Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the height­ened se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence would go a long way to­wards se­cur­ing a crit­i­cal piece of this coun­try’s trav­el in­fra­struc­ture.

Re­fer­ring to the mur­der of Arkin Quashie in April this year and the rob­bery of the Pi­ta Pit out­let in ear­ly June, Gue­var­ro said sen­si­tive fa­cil­i­ties which host cit­i­zens and in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors should be ad­e­quate­ly se­cured.

He al­so warned crim­i­nals that there were no gaps in the new ini­tia­tive and vowed that any threats would be dealt with.

Gue­var­ro al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic that giv­en the high-se­cu­ri­ty na­ture of the air­port, every step need­ed to be tak­en to en­sure the safe­ty of staff and trav­ellers.

“To those who be­lieve they can test the seams of the sys­tem, know this, we are not re­ac­tive... we are ready.

“Let this de­ploy­ment be the first of many steps to­wards a safer, more se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go, not just at Pi­ar­co but any space where our peo­ple live, move and hope.

“This is the in­ter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion gate­way to our shores and if we can­not pro­tect the sanc­ti­ty of this space, then we would have failed,” he said.

Asked whether the re­mit of the of­fi­cers de­ployed will over­lap with those of es­tate con­sta­bles of the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty who are al­ready as­signed to the fa­cil­i­ty, Gue­var­ro said of­fi­cers would act to sup­port ex­ist­ing se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms.

Re­fer­ring to the heavy fire­pow­er used to mur­der Quashie, where crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered 30 spent shells, the top cop said the dan­gers re­quired a firm re­sponse.

“In recog­nis­ing the heinous na­ture of the at­tacks that would have tak­en place, we de­cid­ed to take up­on it­self the man­tle of as­sist­ing the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty in pro­vid­ing that tac­ti­cal sup­port where the es­tate po­lice may have been lack­ing.

“We recog­nise it was 30 spent shells, that is a lot of fire­pow­er to use against one man, so we have trained of­fi­cers from the tac­ti­cal units on the ground to ably as­sist the es­tate po­lice.”

The tac­ti­cal of­fi­cers as­signed to the air­port he said would be pooled from the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), which is trained to re­spond to high-lev­el threats and heav­i­ly armed crim­i­nals.

He was un­able to say how many of­fi­cers in all would be de­ployed to the air­port.

Last May, a 29-year-old sus­pect in a quadru­ple mur­der in Co­corite was ar­rest­ed when he tried to board a plane bound for New York.

When asked if any ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms would be in­tro­duced to not on­ly pre­vent at­tacks against peo­ple ar­riv­ing but al­so crim­i­nals seek­ing to flee, Gue­var­ro said the ar­rest of the sus­pect last year was a tes­ta­ment to the ef­fec­tive­ness of cur­rent pro­to­cols.

“You’ve an­swered your own ques­tion be­cause the last per­son who tried it was caught and he was caught be­cause the sys­tems we have in place at the air­port work.”

In ad­di­tion to tac­ti­cal po­lice, Gue­var­ro said of­fi­cers of the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion will al­so of­fer con­tin­ued sup­port through var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties.

“You may for in­stance see one or two of­fi­cers walk­ing around in uni­form, but you may not be aware of how many are not (dressed in uni­form).”

Mean­while, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the in­tro­duc­tion of ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty was not on­ly im­por­tant to en­sure the safe­ty of trav­ellers, but al­so to show that the state was still in con­trol.

“When we show the kind of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty we have at our in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, it means that this coun­try is well-pre­pared to take care of its cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors to this na­tion.

“I hope as the Com­mis­sion­er would say... not the on­ly place he in­tends to se­cure. He came in­to of­fice and he’s hit the ground run­ning, sup­port­ed by Mr Ben­jamin and oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

“When the law en­force­ment takes this kind of stand to not on­ly pro­tect cit­i­zens but let the crim­i­nals know that enough is enough, it speaks vol­umes.”