Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is ready for the fi­nal phase of the Car­ni­val sea­son.

TTPS Gold com­man­der for Car­ni­val 2026 and DCP Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, yes­ter­day stressed that the po­lice were pre­pared and de­ployed to treat with any emer­gency or in­ci­dent as the fes­tiv­i­ties move in­to high gear head­ing to the cli­max on Mon­day and Tues­day next week.

She not­ed that of­fi­cers will be main­tain­ing a vis­i­ble pres­ence from as ear­ly as 4 am to­day (Fri­day) for the re-en­act­ment of the Can­boulay Ri­ots, tonight for so­ca star Machel Mon­tano’s free con­cert at the Fla­va Vil­lage and Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Hard Fete, both in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah (QPS), and con­tin­u­ing the in­ten­si­ty through­out Car­ni­val.

Mar­tin al­so is­sued a stern warn­ing to crim­i­nals.

“To any­one con­sid­er­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, un­der­stand that en­force­ment will be quick and de­ci­sive,” Mar­tin said dur­ing an in­ter-agency me­dia brief­ing at the VIP lounge of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah’s Grand Stand yes­ter­day.

Pa­trons at­tend­ing any of the events in and around the QPS tonight can ex­pect a no­tice­able po­lice pres­ence, as se­nior of­fi­cers have as­sured that sig­nif­i­cant po­lice re­sources will be de­ployed in prepa­ra­tion for a larg­er-than-usu­al crowd turnout.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions, ACP Tac­ti­cal Sup­port Col­lis Hazel said the po­lice have no­ticed that the Fla­va Vil­lage has at­tract­ed a strong turnout of pa­trons through­out the Car­ni­val sea­son and an­tic­i­pat­ed that even more peo­ple will be vis­it­ing the venue tonight for Mon­tano’s free con­cert.

As head of Tac­ti­cal Sup­port, Hazel is re­spon­si­ble for the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), which has spe­cial ri­ot sup­pres­sion units.

He said with this in mind, the po­lice will be on-site to as­sist with crowd con­trol and traf­fic man­age­ment.

Hazel, how­ev­er, al­so urged the pub­lic to do their part in eas­ing con­ges­tion com­ing to the Sa­van­nah by car-pool­ing to lessen the num­ber of ve­hi­cles in the gen­er­al area.

“I want to ask cit­i­zens to en­sure that we try as much as pos­si­ble and use our trans­porta­tion mode.... in tak­ing a ride, shar­ing a ride, car-pool­ing rather than each per­son in a home com­ing with five cars,” Hazel said.

“We have to be con­sid­er­ate in what we do and how we do things to ease some of the con­ges­tion. We al­so want to ad­vise peo­ple: if you are drink­ing... please don’t dri­ve.”

He al­so warned that po­lice breathal­yser test tech­ni­cians will be de­ployed to the Sa­van­nah to as­sist in “pre­ven­ta­tive and re­ac­tive” polic­ing for peo­ple at­tempt­ing to dri­ve while un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol.

Al­so re­spond­ing to the is­sue of po­lice op­er­a­tions was ACP North-West Garvin Hen­ry, who said a “ro­bust traf­fic plan” was be­ing in­tro­duced for the Sa­van­nah’s events. He al­so warned the pub­lic that in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing in the QPS is strict­ly off-lim­its, not­ing that re­sources will be on-site to en­sure com­pli­ance with the laws and reg­u­la­tions.

“We will have wreck­ing tak­ing place al­so, so any in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing at the Sa­van­nah will be dealt with... the Sa­van­nah is al­ready a no-park­ing zone and we will be en­forc­ing that par­tic­u­lar as­pect of the traf­fic.

“You will see over 100-plus of­fi­cers at the Fla­va Vil­lage. There are oth­er events in the vicin­i­ty and the of­fi­cers will be op­er­at­ing there as well to en­hance the safe­ty cov­er­age.”

Hen­ry al­so said thus far, the TTPS has not had cause to shut down any fetes or Car­ni­val events due to un­ruly pa­trons or venues be­ing over ca­pac­i­ty, not­ing that pro­mot­ers have been gen­er­al­ly com­pli­ant with reg­u­la­tions.

“We have a good re­la­tion­ship with pro­mot­ers... we prob­a­bly butt heads with num­bers and so on... but by and large the pro­mot­ers co-op­er­ate with us and they ad­vise us... as well as we ad­vise them, so we have not had any re­al prob­lems that would have led to us shut­ting down any fetes.”