An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

With just one day be­fore Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brates its 64th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary, law en­force­ment agen­cies have re­vist­ed and height­ened se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures fol­low­ing an un­ver­i­fied re­port of pos­si­ble threats against em­bassies, diplo­mat­ic fa­cil­i­ties and Gov­ern­ment build­ings re­ceived late Fri­day night.

The re­port sur­faced on­ly hours af­ter na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, as­sured the na­tion that threat as­sess­ments ahead of to­mor­row’s cel­e­bra­tions re­mained low.

In a state­ment ti­tled “Se­cu­ri­ty Mea­sures Ac­ti­vat­ed to En­sure Pub­lic Safe­ty” yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed the threat was be­ing treat­ed “with the se­ri­ous­ness and op­er­a­tional sen­si­tiv­i­ty re­quired.”

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin, who is in charge of Op­er­a­tions and serves as Gold Com­man­der for this year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions, in­struct­ed di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders across the TTPS’s ten polic­ing di­vi­sions to im­ple­ment the nec­es­sary op­er­a­tional mea­sures.

The TTPS said it is al­so work­ing close­ly with in­tel­li­gence and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty part­ners to as­sess the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the re­port and safe­guard the pub­lic.

A po­lice bul­letin cir­cu­lat­ed by the Com­mand Cen­tre at 11.12 pm on Fri­day di­rect­ed se­nior of­fi­cers to in­crease se­cu­ri­ty at all po­lice sta­tions. A sub­se­quent com­mu­ni­ca­tion ref­er­enced height­ened pa­trols around Gov­ern­ment build­ings and diplo­mat­ic fa­cil­i­ties.

Con­tact­ed short­ly af­ter the threat was re­ceived on Fri­day night, Mar­tin con­firmed in­ves­ti­ga­tions were un­der­way to de­ter­mine its ori­gin.

The TTPS al­so warned against spec­u­la­tion and the cir­cu­la­tion of un­ver­i­fied in­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly claims con­cern­ing the iden­ti­ty, af­fil­i­a­tion or lo­ca­tion of any in­di­vid­ual or group.

“Cit­i­zens should re­main calm and alert and im­me­di­ate­ly re­port sus­pi­cious per­sons, ve­hi­cles, pack­ages or un­usu­al ac­tiv­i­ty to the po­lice,” the state­ment said.

The ser­vice added that fur­ther in­for­ma­tion would be re­leased when op­er­a­tional­ly ap­pro­pri­ate.

Speak­ing to the me­dia dur­ing a dress re­hearsal in St Ann’s on Fri­day, Gue­var­ro said the TTPS was pre­pared to re­spond to any even­tu­al­i­ty dur­ing Mon­day’s pro­ceed­ings. He not­ed that the lat­est se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ment in­di­cat­ed a “very low thresh­old” for threats, al­low­ing plan­ners to pro­ceed with con­fi­dence.

Gue­var­ro re­vealed that 622 po­lice of­fi­cers will be de­ployed for the cel­e­bra­tions, in­clud­ing 222 as­signed di­rect­ly to the pa­rade and a fur­ther 400 pro­vid­ing con­tin­gency and sup­port ser­vices. He said the TTPS’s strat­e­gy would fo­cus on “pro­fes­sion­al­ism, vis­i­bil­i­ty and fa­cil­i­ta­tion.”

“I want to re­as­sure mem­bers of the pub­lic that the TTPS and all arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty are well poised for en­sur­ing that this is one of the safest pa­rades for In­de­pen­dence,” he said.

This year’s cel­e­bra­tions will fea­ture an ex­pand­ed pro­gramme, in­clud­ing a cul­tur­al pa­rade show­cas­ing steel­pan, tas­sa, mu­sic trucks, moko jumbies and oth­er per­form­ers.

Fol­low­ing the mil­i­tary pa­rade, pa­trons will be treat­ed to a cul­tur­al show­case be­gin­ning at 5 pm at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. The event will cul­mi­nate with a silent fire­works dis­play and drone show.

A no­table ad­di­tion this year is Chief of De­fence Staff Com­modore Don Po­lo, who will serve as pa­rade com­man­der and lead the armed forces on horse­back. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, pa­rade com­man­ders have been se­lect­ed from with­in the ranks of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force.

Last year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions were can­celled be­cause of the State of Emer­gency af­ter in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ed that se­nior State of­fi­cials were un­der threat. The Gov­ern­ment in­stead ob­served Au­gust 31 as a Na­tion­al Day of Prayer and Re­flec­tion.

At­tempts to reach Gue­var­ro, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for com­ment yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

'Bomb threats are not a joke'

The TTPS is urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­frain from mak­ing bomb threats against schools, busi­ness­es, Gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions, trans­port hubs or any oth­er lo­ca­tion.

Head of the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit Joanne Archie yes­ter­day stressed that every threat is treat­ed as gen­uine.

“The TTPS can­not know in ad­vance which call is a hoax, and so each one trig­gers a full emer­gency re­sponse,” she said.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the Sun­day Guardian, Archie added: “There is no such thing as a harm­less bomb threat. Every sin­gle one of these calls pulls of­fi­cers, bomb dis­pos­al per­son­nel and emer­gency re­spon­ders away from com­mu­ni­ties that may need them for a gen­uine emer­gency.”

She warned that in­di­vid­u­als who be­lieve they can act anony­mous­ly are mis­tak­en.

“We have the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to trace these com­mu­ni­ca­tions. We will find you. You will be ar­rest­ed, brought be­fore the courts and left with a crim­i­nal record for what you may have con­sid­ered a prank.”

Archie said false threats can have se­vere con­se­quences, in­clud­ing pan­ic, in­juries dur­ing emer­gency evac­u­a­tions and de­lays in re­spond­ing to re­al emer­gen­cies.

“When po­lice of­fi­cers, fire­fight­ers, bomb dis­pos­al teams and am­bu­lance per­son­nel are di­vert­ed to a hoax, they are un­avail­able to re­spond else­where. That can cost lives and dis­rupt com­mu­ni­ties,” she said.

She added that busi­ness­es can lose rev­enue, work­ers lose wages, and pa­tients and com­muters are dis­placed.

“The great­est dam­age is of­ten the ero­sion of pub­lic con­fi­dence. Re­peat­ed threats leave peo­ple anx­ious long af­ter the all-clear is giv­en.”

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion about the ori­gin of a bomb threat is asked to con­tact po­lice at 999, 555 or 800-TIPS (8477).