KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man and al­der­man Wayne Grif­fith was at­tacked by sev­er­al stu­dents of Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

In a dis­turb­ing video that has since gone vi­ral on so­cial me­dia, Grif­fith was seen at­tempt­ing to in­ter­vene in a fight in­volv­ing stu­dents in Port-of-Spain when a group of them turned on him, knock­ing him to the ground and as­sault­ing him.

Grif­fith re­port­ed­ly sus­tained mul­ti­ple mi­nor in­juries in the at­tack.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne con­firmed the in­ci­dent.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, Al­leyne said, “I can con­firm that there was an in­ci­dent on May 4, 2026, in­volv­ing al­der­man Wayne Grif­fith. The mat­ter is cur­rent­ly at­tract­ing the at­ten­tion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.”

How­ev­er, Al­leyne de­clined to say whether Grif­fith had re­turned to work.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin said the TTPS would be tak­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to such in­ci­dents and is treat­ing the mat­ter se­ri­ous­ly.

“At this point in time, the mat­ter is en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the po­lice and we are go­ing to en­sure that we deal with it prop­er­ly be­cause we want to see a greater lev­el of dis­ci­pline among our chil­dren and stu­dents,” Ben­jamin said.

“I think it is dis­grace­ful to see how the in­ci­dent es­ca­lat­ed, with oth­ers join­ing in. We are tak­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach and will leave no stone un­turned in this in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We are al­so hop­ing to im­ple­ment in­ter­ven­tions to en­sure there are no fu­ture oc­cur­rences of this na­ture.”

Ben­jamin said stu­dents may be ques­tioned af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors com­plete their re­view and analy­sis of the video footage.

He added that the TTPS is con­sid­er­ing in­creas­ing pa­trols af­ter school hours and in ar­eas where stu­dents tend to gath­er out­side school com­pounds.

“We are try­ing to al­low the da­ta to guide us. We recog­nise that these fights are mov­ing from the school en­vi­ron­ment on­to the streets, so we want to iden­ti­fy the schools most af­fect­ed and the lo­ca­tions where these in­ci­dents are oc­cur­ring,” he said.

“We may in­crease sta­t­ic pa­trols and de­ploy more com­mu­ni­ty of­fi­cers around dis­missal time so we can help quell these sit­u­a­tions.”

Ben­jamin al­so said the TTPS is ex­am­in­ing pos­si­ble in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes for re­peat of­fend­ers.

“Above all, we want to iden­ti­fy the of­fend­ers so the nec­es­sary in­ter­ven­tions can be im­ple­ment­ed to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion,” he added.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is aware of the video cur­rent­ly cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia in­volv­ing stu­dents of Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School and is treat­ing the mat­ter with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness. The Min­istry has com­menced an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent. All ac­tions tak­en will be guid­ed in keep­ing with es­tab­lished poli­cies and pro­ce­dures.