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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Tactical cops, sniffer dogs added to beef up airport’s security

by

Shane Superville
13 days ago
20250625
Handler WPC Pierre is accompanied by canine Blaze as they search luggage at the Piarco International Airport yesterday, during the launch of a new crime initiative at the facility.

Handler WPC Pierre is accompanied by canine Blaze as they search luggage at the Piarco International Airport yesterday, during the launch of a new crime initiative at the facility.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

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.”


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