Chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Cur­tis Williams, says crim­i­nals at­tempt­ing to run from the po­lice dur­ing the State of Emer­gency in Trinidad may at­tempt to es­cape to To­ba­go.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, hours af­ter the SoE was de­clared, he said, “To­ba­go might be a safe haven for these el­e­ments that may be run­ning from Trinidad, be­cause Trinidad is hot right now.”

He said To­ba­go has seen a drop in crime in re­cent weeks, and au­thor­i­ties must act to pro­tect the is­land. He re­ferred to a 72 per cent de­cline in mur­ders in 2025 com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

“We knew be­fore, which was a cou­ple of weeks ago, that To­ba­go has def­i­nite­ly re­port­ed a re­duc­tion in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty,” he said.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine last month al­so spoke about the de­cline in mur­ders in To­ba­go and said it was done to the work and in­vest­ment made by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ex­ec­u­tive.

Williams has now called on law en­force­ment to re­main vig­i­lant.

“We just ask every­one to re­main calm and the law en­force­ment to do what they have to do to en­sure that To­ba­go stays safe through­out this pe­ri­od,” he said.

Williams al­so said his mem­bers must take spe­cial note of the of­fi­cial de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency.

“We wish to as­sure all the res­i­dents and vis­i­tors that the safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and well-be­ing of the To­ba­go peo­ple is our high­est pri­or­i­ty,” Williams said.

“And we ask them to work close­ly with the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency and the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to en­sure the nec­es­sary mea­sures are put in place so that the law can be up­held and main­tained. I know it’s an un­usu­al time for the To­ba­go peo­ple, but we urge them to re­main calm, ad­here to all the di­rec­tives from the law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties, and stay in­formed,” he said.

He re­mind­ed To­bag­o­ni­ans that they have ex­pe­ri­enced sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions be­fore.

“I mean, this is not a strange sit­u­a­tion, but it’s some­thing that we have lived through be­fore, and I just hope that every­thing goes well as we speak,” he added.